


Life Among Islands

by wldnst



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, F/M, M/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:28:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wldnst/pseuds/wldnst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne needs a vacation. So does Arthur, but he doesn't know it yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Among Islands

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on [livejournal](http://wldnst.livejournal.com/12937.html), September 2011. 
> 
> The premise of this fic was blatantly lifted from the movie 'The Holiday.' Thank you to gelbwax for the beta; laria_gwyn for suggesting 'The Holiday' as a movie to premise lift, and bauble for giving me permission to use the suggestion when she decided not to.

Ariadne needs a vacation. She tells this to the woman in line ahead of her at Bean Surfin’ by way of conversation, and because it’s something she’s been thinking ever since her father died and it became apparent that most things on the islands remind her of him.  
  
The woman just blinks at her with a bovine sweetness and says, “Aren’t you on vacation, dear?”  
  
Ariadne isn’t on vacation. She isn’t. She lives here, and she tells the woman as much, and the woman nods.  
  
“It must be lovely to live here,” she says after a moment, during which the line advances none at all and Ariadne attempts to pull a desperate face at Eames, something that will make him start her order before she gets to the front of the line. They should have a special line, for locals, where a Hawaiian drivers’ license (or library card, for the kids) would immediately put you in the front. Ariadne deserves this. It’s the least they could do, to make up for days like this, when Ariadne truly regrets patronizing Bean Surfin’, with its weak pun of a name and kitschy decor. She hates it, actually. If their coffee weren’t so good it would be ridiculous for the place to reel in anyone but tourists, but here they are, a muddle of tourists and locals, together in line.  
  
“You could do a homeswap, you know dear,” the woman in front of her says. “I hear that works quite well. And if you live here--”  
  
The woman exhales a long, envious sigh. They are close enough to the front of the line now that Ariadne can catch Eames’ eyes and roll hers. He winks, holds up the cup in his hand, mouths “for you.”  
  
So there’s that, at least.  
  
But normally Eames would mock her griping, tell her that the tourists make this place, and he knows her boss doesn’t give a shit if she’s late, and he’s kind of a tourist and doesn’t she like him?  
  
And she’d punch him in the shoulder, call him a surf bum and a vagrant, ask him if his visa hasn’t expired yet and when he’s going to run out of money or run awry of the law and get out of her life for good.  
  
That was before the funeral, though. And Ariadne is grateful for the coffee, but she knows he’s only made it up ahead of time because she looks like shit, like shit warmed over and then left outside to cool again. She plasters a grin on, wallpaper covering a structural flaw that cuts to the quick, and goes out into the sun, hitting the wheel well of her car with her hip as she passes to ensure it will start.  
  
She needs a vacation.  
  


> Subject: Homeswapping, 13 October 2010  
>  To: Swap 5324 (swap5324-785@homeswapping.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  Attachments: beach.jpg; front.jpg; livingspace.jpg
> 
> I saw your advertisement on homeswapping.com (obviously) and was wondering if you might be interested in doing a swap with me--I live in Hawaii in a little bungalow on a pretty sweet stretch of beach (pictures attached--there’s also a bathroom and bedroom, but they’re pretty predictable. I can send those too if you want.). Not quite as swank as your digs (seriously, though, your apartment looks great), but this is vacation, right?
> 
> I know you mentioned the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving would work well for you, which is fine by me, BUT my mom would rip me a new one if I wasn’t home for the holiday, so there is that.
> 
> Let me know what works!
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -Ariadne Jones-Kahue
> 
>  
> 
> Subject: Fwd: Homeswapping, 14 October 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com) CC: Mallorie Miles (mallorie.miles@milesandcobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Dominic Cobb (dominic.cobb@milesandcobbconsulting.com)
> 
> I know you won’t be pleased with this development, but please see below. You need a vacation.
> 
> I will seriously consider firing you if you do not accept this offer. Mal agrees.
> 
> -Dom
> 
>  
> 
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Homeswapping, 14 October 2010  
>  To: Dominic Cobb (dominic.cobb@milesandcobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> You asshole.
> 
> Take down that listing immediately. Those photos are an invasion of privacy, and if you fire me for this I will be suing you so hard you’ll see stars.
> 
> -Arthur
> 
>  
> 
> Subject: Your Immediate Termination, 14 October 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Mallorie Miles (mallorie.miles@milesandcobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Dom has informed me that you are not acquiescing on vacationing at the lovely house in Hawai’i. Please understand that I’ve taken the liberty of gathering some information this should ensure that, if you do decide to sue us, your personal and professional reputation will be in tatters.
> 
> I hope you will take that into consideration when making your decision. Otherwise, I am afraid I will have to ask you to meet me in the boardroom at seventeen hundred hours.
> 
> -Mal
> 
>  
> 
> Subject: Re: Your Immediate Termination, 14 October 2010  
>  To: Mallorie Miles (mallorie.miles@milesandcobbconsulting.com), Dominic Cobb (dominic.cobb@milesandcobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Dom: Your wife is terrifying.
> 
> Mal: Please stop sending me e-mails containing my social security number and credit card information. Also, we don’t have a boardroom, but that may not be relevant.
> 
> Both of You:
> 
> I will reply to the Hawaiian woman’s e-mail if you send it to me again. I deleted the original from both my inbox and my trash in a fit of rage, as should be expected when one’s friends are meddling in one’s life so unabashedly.
> 
> -Arthur
> 
>  
> 
> Subject: Re: Homeswapping, 15 October 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  Attachments: houseswapcontract.pdf
> 
> Ms. Jones-Kahue:
> 
> I would be amicable to a house swap, but be aware that I do live with a cat, and if you have any allergies and/or are incapable of cleaning a litterbox during your stay please consider staying elsewhere. There will also be some basic cleanliness standards; I have attached those in contract form. Please sign and either mail or fax me this contract. If you would like to take similar precautions, I understand completely.
> 
> Otherwise, I suggest we arrange our vacations beginning November 12th and ending on the 19th. I will send information about obtaining a key upon receipt of the contract.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Arthur Faraday

  
Ariadne’s just going to come out and say that the contract is a little disconcerting. She just wanted to get off the islands, and New York City seemed as good a place as any--not to mention this guy’s apartment actually _was_ nice, a loft with big windows, sleek details, tasteful decorations that hinted at some personality beyond that of nervous, contract-writing homeowner. And it’s about as different from her place as you can get, which is something she was looking for, too, maybe the main thing. The contract, though--she signs it and scans it at the office about the time she tells her boss that she’ll be taking a vacation.  
  
“A week and a half,” he says. “Before Thanksgiving.”  
  
“Yes,” Ariadne replies, and he shrugs.  
  
“Whatever you need, as long finish your assignments on deadline.”  
  
Which was about how she expected it to go. She works for a graphic design firm, a sort of scraggly operation founded by a friend of her mother’s who wanted to do design and didn’t want to leave the island. She likes it. It pays the bills, as they say, and she likes the combination of precision and artistry that digital design offers. What she needs is a vacation not so much from work as it is from the island, where very nearly everywhere she goes she runs into someone she doesn’t feel like talking to, is reminded of something she’s in no mood to remember.  
  
And that’s what she’s going to get, even if she has to clean someone else’s cat litter and sign a crazy ass contract to get it.  
  
It seems better than the alternative, which is swapping with someone who lives in a shithole or an unimaginatively designed house in the suburbs (Ariadne studied architecture in Paris, but she’s not a snob about it, really). Ariadne’s house is awesome. This kid’s apartment will do, for the week and a half or so. She’ll be homesick by the end of it, hungry for pineapples that taste like the islands and fish that tastes like the ocean, but now she needs something new. Just for a moment. Just to remind herself that the things she likes about home are still there, even if other things--aren’t.  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Homeswapping, 15 October 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  Attachment: ariadneendrosesthiscontract.jpg
> 
> Arthur--
> 
> I’ve attached a signed copy of your contract. W/r/t my house--if you break the hammock you owe me (a new hammock, plus some compensation for distress), the toilet is a little persnickety but there’s a plunger in the linen closet, feel free to eat whatever you find in the cupboards but please don’t take the weed in the underwear drawer (unless it’s an emergency). Oh, and if my brother stops by with fish just take them.
> 
> -Ariadne

  
Arthur is not sure what he’s gotten himself into. Actually, strictly speaking: what Dom and Mal have gotten him into, because they can’t leave well enough alone. Sitting in the office, staring at the e-mail from the Hawaiian woman: who the hell is she? Should he have asked for references? Does her house really exist? Is the hammock seriously the only part of the place she’s concerned about? Is it a shack? Maybe it’s not really on the beach. Maybe she shares it with dozens of other potheads. Maybe it smells like piss.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Mal says, coming up behind him. “It’s going to be wonderful. I wish I were going to Hawaii.”  
  
“How did you know what I was thinking about?” Arthur asks, glancing up.  
  
“Woman’s intuition,” Mal says. “Also, this just came out of the printer, and I believe it’s yours.”  
  
She drops Arthur’s contract on the desk, and it slides across the dark wood. Ariadne’s signature at the bottom is startlingly lovely--illegible, but lovely. She has nice handwriting. Maybe there’s hope for this endeavor yet.  
  
“Right,” Arthur says, instead of what he’s thinking. “Thanks for bringing it by.”  
  
“My desk is right there,” Mal says, jerking her chin to the left. It’s true that all their desks are in one room, because it’s cheaper that way and they’re hardly ever in the office, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be _thanked_. It’s common courtesy.  
  
“Thank you,” Arthur repeats, sifting through the files on the right-hand drawer of his desk and slipping Ariadne’s contract into the file labelled “contracts, external.”  
  
Mal just smiles him in that thin lipped, quirky way of hers, like she’s laughing but not quite.  
  
“Arthur,” she says. “This is why you need a vacation.”  
  
“No,” he says. “But I’m okay if you want to pretend that’s why.”  
  
Mal’s smile turns wan and tight, and she sits down at her own desk and begins to shunt through papers.  
  
Arthur knows why Mal and Dom thinks he needs a vacation: because he’s single, and they’re married, and they think he’s too tightly laced, afraid of risks, needs to escape his comfort zone. Or Mal thinks so; Dom just goes along.  
  
“It’s not about being single,” Mal said one evening when he was waving a wine glass threateningly at her, silence softened by drink. “Or it wouldn’t be, if I thought you were happy.”  
  
It was such a _Mal_ thing to say, and Arthur still wants to do something, prove her manipulative self wrong. Just because happiness doesn’t look the same on different people doesn’t mean he’s unhappy. Just because he spends some evenings at home with Eero doesn’t mean he’s destined to die single alone, his eyeballs eaten by cats before anyone finds the body.  
  
But maybe he does need a vacation, from condescending friends who think they know better than he does. Maybe that’s precisely what he needs.  
  


> Subject: Homeswapping, 10 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Ariadne:
> 
> Just making the final arrangements for your visit. My friend Mal will meet you at J.F.K., bring you to the flat, provide you with the necessary key codes and key, introduce you to Eero (the cat). She’s a brunette Frenchwoman, probably won’t carry a sign but will be wearing impractical heels.
> 
> AF
> 
>  
> 
> Subject: Re: Homeswapping, 10 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> Arthur--
> 
> I’ll leave a key under the potted hibiscus to the left of the door. If you have any trouble, just slice a screen and go in the window, no worries about replacing it.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -Ariadne

  
Arthur doesn’t like the lei they give him at arrivals. He has allergies; mostly to goldenrod but it seems like, theoretically, he could have allergies to some of these flowers if only he’d encountered them before, because they’re big and perfumed and he thinks he sees pollen on their little flower sex organs or whatever. It seems rude to take it off right away, but as soon as he gets to the baggage claim he slips into a restroom and puts it in the waste basket. A man comes in to use the urinal and looks at him strangely, probably because Arthur’s standing in front of the mirror smoothing the front of his oxford and trying not to look suspicious.  
  
Arthur is, under normal circumstances, good at not looking suspicious, so it’s stupid that he’s ashamed of this to the point of skulking around the mens’ restroom, trying to avoid making eye contact with people in shirts with parrots on them.  
  
The car service Ariadne arranged to take him to her house arrives, careening into the arrivals gate a little too late, navigated by a stout woman who apologizes profusely and single-handedly hefts his bags into the trunk.  
  
“I’m Esther,” she starts, and keeps up a steady stream of talk after that, rarely leaving Arthur room to contribute. He finds he likes it that way: it’s easier than actually having to participate, and her chatter interspersed with gossip and facts about the locations they’re passing is more interesting than small talk. “So you’re staying at Ari’s, then? You’re sure to love it. It’s on the windward side of the island, a bit nicer, I think. What brings you here? Vacation, of course, sorry, stupid question.”  
  
She pauses then, and glances at Arthur, who is riding shotgun because the car seems to be not so much a car service as one of Ariadne’s friends doing a favor, or some woman’s business run out of her car. There’s a child’s seat in the back, a pile of books, a Ziploc bag full of what look to be cheerios, and some crumpled candy wrappers.  
  
“Vacation, yes,” he provides, and Esther grins brightly as she swerves off the main road.  
  
“That’s great,” she says. “Really, you’re going to love Ari’s place. And she’s staying at yours? Where’s that?”  
  
“New York,” Arthur replies, then adds: “City.”  
  
“Not for me, big cities,” Esther says. “We get a lot of refugees from the big cities here, though. You’ll probably meet Eames, he’s from somewhere like that, don’t know where ‘xactly. But I’m Hawaiian. Born and raised on Spam. Couldn’t bear to leave. There’s Lanikai, off there? If you like hikes, that one’s worth the bother. Of course, if you like ‘em, probably don’t think of it as a bother--Oh, we’re here!”  
  
The car screeches to a halt and turns down a gravel drive, and Arthur recoils against the seatbelt for a moment before gathering his bearings.  
  
Ariadne’s house is kind of charming, and precisely as it appeared in the pictures: a bright bungalow in fresh, vibrant paint, a striped hammock slung across the porch, a blue door framed by two sprawling hibiscus plants. And the beach--the beach is there, sand buff, water perfectly crystalline.  
  
Arthur is taking it in while Esther is already on her way out of the car, kicking the door shut behind and going around to the trunk.  
  
“Isn’t it just?” she calls to him. “I’ll bring your bags to the porch.”  
  
Esther deposits the suitcases on the porch and then says something Arthur doesn’t quite catch, about how badly she needs to leave.  
  
The key is under the plant, actually, although it’s under the plant that’s to the left of the door if you’re going out, not coming in, and Arthur winds up with dirt under his fingernails before he finally extracts the key from its hiding place and gets it in the door. Ariadne failed to mention that opening the door took a little elbow grease and a sharp jolt from the hip, but when the door does open it looks-- _wonderful_. Not somewhere Arthur could live, but maybe somewhere he could vacation: bright colors, mismatched furniture, things piled and draped on the chairs, like even the prospect of an anonymous guest couldn’t bring this girl to bother tidying. Arthur supposes he should be glad there isn’t any underwear strewn around, just soft, shapeless things, blankets and sheets and maybe sarongs.  
  
It occurs to Arthur that he’s staring at Ariadne’s furniture when he could go outside and look at the wide expanse of the Pacific, sink his toes through layers of warm sand and wait for the sun to set.  
  
So he does just that.  
  


> Subject: Arrival, 12 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Ariadne:
> 
> I trust your arrival went smoothly and Mal wasn’t too much trouble. Please let me know if you have any questions or need any help.
> 
> AF

  
Ariadne actually goes to sleep directly after Mal leaves. The first advantage to New York over Hawaii is how cool the autumn air is, and Ariadne takes great pleasure in burying herself beneath Arthur’s duvet and just _resting_. Not that she doesn’t rest at home, but the airport itself wore her out and the mattress here is precisely right and it’s nice to sleep with the guarantee that no one will wake her up, except perhaps the cat, a fluffy Persian who disappeared beneath a couch as soon as Mal and Ariadne arrived.  
  
She doesn’t know how long she sleeps, but when she wakes up again it’s dark outside, and the cat is watching her from above her head. She stretches, and peers out of her cocoon of blankets.  
  
“I suppose this means you’re hungry, huh?” she asks, and the cat lets out a small mewl.  
  
“I am, too,” she continues, pulling herself out of the stridently soapy smelling linens and wandering towards the kitchen. There are cans of cat food on the counter, and she opens one for Eero and tips it into his dish before rifling through the cabinets and finding--nothing.  
  
That isn’t strictly true: there’s a jar of fancy olives, a bottle of gin and one of vermouth, and it’s obvious what those are intended for. But there’s nothing to make a meal out of, and it’s apparant this Arthur person intends for her to procure her own food for the length of her stay. Either that, or he just doesn’t _eat_. Which is fine, really. Ariadne is perfectly capable of going downstairs to some drug store, market, whatever, and purchasing--something.  
  
Ice cream, she decides. And beer. Proper food can wait. This is supposed to be a vacation, after all.  
  
The rain that was sliding down when her flight landed has abated now, leaving the sidewalks glazed but largely undisturbed. It’s still early evening, and the sidewalks aren’t clogged, precisely, but busy enough with gaggles dressed for clubbing, late dinners, and couples or singletons walking their dogs, smoking cigarettes. Ariadne finds herself walking aimlessly before she hits upon a corner market that has what she’s looking for. She balances the paper bag between her left hand and her hip as she returns to Arthur’s apartment. No one has stopped her to tell her how sorry they are, about what happened. New York, she thinks to herself: Just the ticket.  
  
There’s a bum in the doorway when she gets back, wedged against and overlarge backpack. He seems be asleep, but he looks harmless, an Indian man with a head of thick hair. Ariadne is aware that most people look harmless when asleep. She kneels down to shake him on the shoulder, and he starts awake, blinking owlishly at her. His eyes are dark, fringed with thick lashes.  
  
“Excuse me,” she says. “I’m just need to get through.”  
  
“You live here?” he asks, and it’s Ariadne’s turn to blink.  
  
“Not precisely--” she starts, wondering if this is the doorman. Maybe sleeping on the doorstep with large backpacks is a thing doormen do now, here, a sort of fad.  
  
“I mean,” she says. “I don’t live here, but I have the code for the keypad, and a key. I’m staying here for a bit, as a guest.”  
  
The man blinks again, more rapidly, like he’s still catching his bearings. It occurs to Ariadne that she may be explaining herself, with undue detail, to a bum. Maybe this is some sort of set-up for a mugging. She begins to mentally sketch a contingency plan: the pint of ice cream is still cold and somewhat hard, and she could throw that, or maybe break a bottle of beer on his head. Though that might be a waste of beer.  
  
She snakes a hand into the bag, just to be safe.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, lifting a hand to scratch the back of his neck. “Sorry. I’m just waiting for someone.”  
  
“Oh,” Ariadne says. “Right.”  
  
The man gets to his feet and shifts his backpack out of the way, and Ariadne goes up to the keypad.  
  
He’s still watching her, and this is all much more awkward than Ariadne would like. Ariadne is sure the bum is very nice. He was polite. He probably _is_ waiting for someone, though it seems like he would just call them, if that were the case.  
  
“I have my cell,” she says. “If you want to give whoever you’re waiting for a ring.”  
  
“Thanks,” the man says. “But I don’t actually know his number.”  
  
“But you know where he lives,” Ariadne says, trying not to sound skeptical.  
  
“Oh, Arthur’s lived here for ages,” the man replies. “Or at least since he fell in with that couple. Don’t know where he got the money, though--are the apartments here rent-controlled?”  
  
“Arthur?” Ariadne repeats.  
  
“Arthur Faraday?” the man says. “Dark hair, about this high? Do you know him?”  
  
“Actually,” Ariadne says slowly. “I’m staying in his apartment.”  
  
“Wonderful!” The man’s face splits into a grin. “Can you call him, then? Tell him Yusuf’s here, just for a few nights this time.”  
  
“I’m staying in his apartment while he’s away,” Ariadne expands. She’s trying to sound diplomatic, though she’s not entirely certain she succeeds. “And he’s at mine. But I could--”  
  
Yusuf’s watching her, and she fishes in her pocket and then hands him her bag.  
  
“Here, just a sec,” she says, and calls her own house and waits for it to ring through to the answering machine.  
  
“You’ve reached Ariadne, leave a message or get out,” it says, and her recorded voice sounds distant and foreign to her own ears.  
  
“Arthur,” she says. “If you’re there, please pick up--someone named Yusuf is here. It’s Ariadne, by the way. Just pick up, could you? Or call me back. You have my cell number, and this machine has caller i.d. if you can figure out how to work it.”  
  
“Fuck it,” she mutters, flipping the phone shut against her thigh. Yusuf looks mildly amused, and when she looks up at him and shrugs he flashes her a grin.  
  
“Häagen-Dazs and beer, eh?” he asks.  
  
“You want some?” she counters. He’s probably not a psycho killer. And if he is, well, at least they won’t be standing around out here with the ice cream melting.  
  
“Sure,” he says, smiling easily this time, like strange women invite him to share ice cream and beer on a regular basis.  
  
“Well come on then,” Ariadne replies, and keys in code again.  
  
“I went to college with Arthur,” Yusuf offers helpfully as they climb the stairs. “So this isn’t really strange at all.”  
  
“I’m going to have to contest that point, actually,” Ariadne says, but she finds herself grinning slightly.  
  
“And refresh me again on how you know Arthur?” Yusuf asks.  
  
“I met him on the internet and we’re swapping homes,” Ariadne says.  
  
“So this _is_ strange,” Yusuf says. “But not because of me.”  
  
“I’m sharing my beer and ice cream, aren’t I?” Ariadne says, and Yusuf laughs.  
  
Eero appears and disappears like a lightening bolt when they come in.  
  
“So he still has Escher?” Yusuf asks. “I thought the fucker would’ve died by now. Always hated me.”  
  
“I think he has,” Ariadne says. “That was Eero.”  
  
“And so Arthur got another prissy purebred?” Yusuf asks, snorting through his nose. “When there are all sorts of homeless cats in this city--”  
  
“What, are you in PETA?” Ariadne asks. She was raised be to skeptical of PETA--her “Fish are Friends, Not Food!” sticker was _entirely_ ironic.  
  
“No,” Yusuf says stiffly. “But I donate regularly to the SPCA.”  
  
“My dad’s a fisherman,” she offers, to salve any offense. “My brother is, too.”  
  
Her father _was_ a fisherman, she realizes, is the correct way of it, but amending it now seems awkward. Instead she sifts through Arthur’s drawers until she finally locates a bottle opener in the back, which she holds up with a pleased smile.  
  
“Arthur doesn’t drink much beer, does he?” she asks, cracking open a bottle and handing it to Yusuf.  
  
“Never did,” Yusuf says.  
  
“What’s he like?” Ariadne asks. “Bit strange, not knowing a thing about him. You know he made me sign a contract?”  
  
“Sounds like Arthur,” Yusuf nods. “He’s a good guy. Can come off as stiff--but. Probably a product of circumstances.”  
  
Ariadne is looking for an ice cream scoop, but she gestures for Yusuf to continue.  
  
“We were at MIT together. He was in ROTC,” Yusuf says, taking a swig. “I think ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ kind of fucked him up. Not that he was completely open before that, but it certainly didn’t help.”  
  
“Oh,” Ariadne says, and pauses as if to consider this.  
  
“My brother’s gay,” she adds, apropos of nothing. “Or bi, really. But the last dude he dated--was a dude.”  
  
“Arthur _never_ dates,” Yusuf responds mildly.  
  
“But he’s not in the military anymore, is he?” Ariadne asks, and Yusuf shakes his head. “Works for some consulting firm, according to his e-mail address.”  
  
“They let him finish his commitment with civilian work,” he says. “Though I don’t know why.”  
  
“Maybe he’s a spy. But it’s not really my business, is it?” Ariadne says wryly. She’s located an ice cream scoop, and dishes, and proceeds to divide the pint between them.  
  
“Probably not, no,” Yusuf says, catching the dish Ariadne slides across the counter to him. “And here I am telling you.”  
  
“I’m going to e-mail Arthur right now and ask him about MIT,” Ariadne says. “And whether he wants me to set him up with my brother.”  
  
They’re both leaning on either side of the smooth granite island at the center of Arthur’s kitchen, and Ariadne studies the careful way Yusuf extracts his spoon from the ice cream it fell into, examining it and then licking it from top to tip.  
  
“If Arthur thinks I was gossiping about him--”  
  
“Gossiping about Arthur was not actually in the contract,” Ariadne says, swirling her spoon in the air. “Now let’s gossip about you.”  
  
“I don’t think--” Yusuf says.  
  
“I’ll start,” Ariadne interjects. “I hear there’s this guy named Yusuf who sleeps outside apartment buildings trying to get an unsuspecting resident to take him in. You know anything about that?”  
  
“I _think_ ,” Yusuf says slowly. “That he’s been been backpacking around the states in an effort to kill time before his postdoc starts and was hoping to stay with an old friend, only to be unexpectedly preyed on by a small, nosy person.”  
  
“Who gave him beer,” Ariadne says, opening another bottle. “And ice cream.”  
  
“Well spotted,” he replies. “Anyway, that’s what I hear. But do you know anything about the small, nosy person?”  
  
“Ariadne,” Ariadne provides, unsure, now, whether she ever gave her name. “I think she’s from Hawaii, or maybe fucking Guam. But she’s vacationing from islands.”  
  
“On an island.”  
  
“With bridges,” Ariadne says. “The bridges are important. I can tell you aren’t from an island, because you say this.”  
  
“I grew up in London,” Yusuf says. “U.K.’s a few islands, isn’t it?”  
  
“No,” Ariadne says decisively. “I’ve heard all about your European _islands_. They’re bullshit.”  
  
“Right,” Yusuf says, raising his eyebrows. “Another beer?”  
  
“Sorry,” Ariadne says, and passes a bottle to him. “Arthur’s a terrible host.”  
  
“ _Arthur_ would have made me a martini or a gin and tonic by now.”  
  
“What, does he think he’s James Bond? That’s all the food he has in this place.”  
  
“He can’t cook,” Yusuf says. “Mostly eats takeaways. But I thought we were going to stop talking about Arthur?”  
  
“We _were_ ,” Ariadne says. “But somehow the conversation circled back to him.”  
  
“We should be more careful,” Yusuf says. His eyes are hooded, but there’s a hint of a grin about the corners. He’s not bad looking, Ariadne decides; probably good looking, but she’s slow to notice these things in people she’s actually interacting with. The first time someone told her Eames was hot she had blinked at them very rapidly and then tilted her head back towards Eames, jagging her thumb in his direction in a gesture that was clearly meant to ask, “ _Him_?”  
  
Yusuf though. Ariadne likes his hair--it looks thick, like she could thread her fingers through it and _pull_.  
  
“Right,” Ariadne says, taking another bite of her ice cream. “And how do you propose we do that? Arthur’s the only thing we have in common, and I don’t even know him.”  
  
Yusuf hums a little, as if to himself. Ariadne tongues her spoon, studying him. His lips are plush and look soft, and Ariadne wonders if he’ll say it or if she’ll have to. She’d prefer it if he did, just because most men seem to prefer it if they do-- _but_. She would prefer it if they got past the pleasantries.  
  
Her phone rings. The ring tone is Not Embarassing, but she tells herself that too frequently for it to be true. Glancing at the screen, she sees it’s coming from her own home number, which--  
  
“I have to take this,” she says. “It’s Arthur.”  
  
Yusuf grins at her, a quick flash of white teeth, and Ariadne tries to grant him a returning grin that says she understands the irony of this situation, but she really does need to take this call, in case Arthur set fire to something or is about to tell her that he doesn’t know anyone named Yusuf, actually, and this man is just a very capable liar.  
  
“Ariadne,” he says when she picks up. “This is Arthur. Sorry about Yusuf.”  
  
“Not a problem,” Ariadne says.  
  
“We went to college together,” Arthur says. “And he shows up from time to time. If you don’t mind, the guest bedroom--”  
  
“No, of course not,” Ariadne says. “I don’t mind at all.”  
  
“Good, then,” Arthur says, sounding uncomfortable. “Well, your place is very nice.”  
  
“As is yours.”  
  
“I’ll just leave you to it, then--” he says, and Ariadne hangs up on him.  
  
“So, suspicions confirmed, it would appear Yusuf and Arthur attended college together,” she says, turning back to Yusuf, who has come over to the other side of the island and is watching her. “If you were wondering.”  
  
“I was a bit concerned about this Yusuf character,” Yusuf says.  
  
“So was I,” Ariadne says, stepping towards him. “I was beginning to suspect he and Ariadne were going to fuck.”  
  
There’s a moment, where Yusuf just looks at her. If Ariadne weren’t just little drunk and fuzzy about the edges she would say the moment was loaded: as it is, she waits. She likes to have everything out in the open and it is, now. She doesn’t need to wait for Yusuf to broach the topic, or for them to each have a third beer or move on to the gin and lower their boundaries just a little bit further.  
  
Ariadne has never been one for patience. Even waiting now is discomfiting her.  
  
“Right,” Yusuf says, not taking his eyes off her. “I was rather thinking that, myself.”  
  
After that, it’s simple enough: another step closer, maybe two, and their bodies bracket together. It’s sweeter than it should be, because it’s just sex, really, but Ariadne allows herself a moment or several for her mouth to appreciate Yusuf’s, which tastes distantly of cigarettes and more recently of lager. He kisses with more patience than Ariadne has ever had for anything in her entire life, and she finds she likes the way his lips feel against hers, exactly like they looked, soft and strong.  
  
She likes everything about this, really. Teasing her fingers along Yusuf’s jawline, feeling his cock harden against her, Yusuf’s arms tight around her waist, the way his fingers roam lower on her back, eventually finding her ass, eventually lifting her off the ground and transferring her to the table to level their heights.  
  
“I’m not taking advantage of you, am I?” Ariadne breathes into his neck.  
  
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Yusuf replies, and Ariadne begins to finger his fly, just to prove him wrong, and also because she wants this, because never before in her life have circumstances and bodies slotted so well together.  
  
They both wind up in the guest bedroom, a tangle of sheets and limbs, because there was something in the contract about having sex in Arthur’s bed, and Ariadne did sign it, after all.  
  


> Subject: Yusuf, 12 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> No worries about Yusuf. He’s agreed to show me around the city, and he might stick around to see you after I leave if that’s alright.
> 
> -Ari

  
Arthur slept on the couch his first night at Ariadne’s. It’s a thing he does, though he has no good reason for it: he likes to ease himself in to new places, and sleeping on the couch, his forehead pressed into a cushion and his feet dangling over the armrest, just about does it. Sleeping in a bed feels permanent, sleeping in a couch feels transient.  
  
Not that Arthur needs to explain himself, because there’s no one there to see, because he is on vacation and Ariadne’s house is private, presumably.  
  
It is private, but when he wakes up, someone is _watching_ him. Arthur can feel the weight of eyes on the small of his back--on his ass--and he wonders if maybe sleeping in his briefs on a stranger’s couch was not the best idea. He exhales into the pillow.  
  
He can take this person, if it comes to that. Arthur has training in these things, and even if he’s a civilian now and doesn’t carry a gun--  
  
He rolls over.  
  
There’s a man, sitting on a stool in front of the kitchen counter, leaning back on his elbows and smirking at Arthur, like this is all normal. He looks entirely at ease, and obviously he let himself in, because Arthur didn’t bother to lock the door last night.  
  
No, scratch that, Arthur _definitely_ locked the door last night.  
  
He’s on his feet in a flash, but the man looks decidedly nonplussed.  
  
“What the _hell_ are you doing here?” he asks, and the man grins.  
  
“I could ask you the same, darling,” he says. “Not that I don’t appreciate it. Ariadne never looks quite this good in the morning.”  
  
So the man’s British, then. And distractingly good looking, if Arthur were in any mood to be distracted.  
  
“I’m staying here while Ariadne’s away,” Arthur says. “Not that I need to explain myself to you.”  
  
“But you are, aren’t you?” the man says with a shrug. His shoulders are--his shoulders are broad, in a word, and thickly muscular. Arthur could still take him, though: he clings to that fact, because nothing else on this playing ground is even.  
  
“And you are?” Arthur prods, because he might as well give this man a shot, since he knows Ariadne and there are not one but two cups of coffee on the counter behind him.  
  
“I’m Eames,” he says. “Ariadne lets me surf here, in exchange for coffee.”  
  
He jerks his chin in the direction of the cups, and studies Arthur, “I don’t suppose you like your lattes with two shots of espresso and two shots of caramel, do you?”  
  
Eames is probably a thief. Arthur needs a little time to ascertain this, though.  
  
He takes the latte and sits down on the couch.  
  
“And your name is?” Eames prods. It occurs to Arthur he’s still in his underwear, and talking to a potential thief, but he doesn’t quite have it in him to care.  
  
He sips the latte. It’s too sweet, but good, with enough espresso that it bites.  
  
“Arthur,” he offers. “Ariadne and I are doing a homeswap.”  
  
“Ah,” Eames says. “She may have mentioned that.”  
  
“And you may have ignored her?” Arthur asks, quirking his eyebrows.  
  
“I had to make sure you weren’t rubbing your naked body all over my mate’s furniture. Which apparently you were, so point goes to me on that one.”  
  
“I was not _naked_ ,” Arthur says.  
  
“Close enough,” Eames says.  
  
“Should I get dressed then, if I’m offending your delicate sensibilities?” Arthur asks.  
  
“Please don’t,” Eames says. “I was quite enjoying the view.”  
  
It occurs to Arthur, too little too late, that this would probably be construed as flirting in some circles. He takes a long gulp from the latte, to shore himself up against something, though he’s not entirely sure what.  
  
“If you’re here to surf, why aren’t you dressed for it?” Arthur says, in a weak effort to return to the conversation to the issue of potential thievery. Eames is dressed innocuously in a grey t-shirt and jeans.  
  
“Wetsuit’s in the car,” Eames replies, arching an eyebrow like Arthur’s question means more than it does. He probably thinks Arthur wants to see him in a wetsuit. It’s an unspoken question, but Arthur refuses to dignify it with any sort of response.  
  
And, with that thought in his head, Arthur _does_ want to see him in a wetsuit. The jeans only hint at the shape of Eames’ thighs.  
  
“I figure,” Arthur says evenly. “It would even the playing field.”  
  
Eames laughs at that and flashes Arthur a broad, goofy grin that is nothing short of charming.  
  
Arthur is fairly certain he’s doomed. The worst part is this man is obviously a womanizer, or a manizer, or whatever the hell you call it. A _flirt_. Arthur refuses to be reeled in by a common flirt, even one with lips that have probably should be outlawed for indecency.  
  
He’s here to escape Mal, with her conviction that Arthur needs to open up and be someone he’s not. He refuses to prove her right, and he refuses to do so with some British surfer.  
  


> Subject: Eames, 13 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Ariadne:
> 
> An “Eames” stopped by and claims you give him access to your beach in exchange for coffee. Is this true?
> 
> -AF

  
Yusuf’s already gone when Ariadne slithers into wakefulness the next morning, and it takes her a moment to process where she is, unfamiliar blankets and high, white ceilings. It smells faintly of sex and bacon. She puts on a shirt from the floor and pads into the kitchen, where Yusuf is humming to himself and tending a heavy cast iron skillet.  
  
“Some of that for me?” she asks, running her hands along the counter. In the morning all of this feels strange, but not entirely bad. Not entirely real, either, though the granite countertops are still as hard as reality would dictate.  
  
“Wasn’t going to be,” he says without turning around. “But now that you’re here, I suppose I don’t have a choice.”  
  
“That’s right,” Ariadne says. “Did you go out and buy food? How did you get back in?”  
  
“I may have gotten the door code off you last night,” Yusuf says, not sounding contrite in the least. “And swiped your key.”  
  
“I can handle that,” Ariadne says. “For bacon. Have you see Eero?”  
  
“Fed him,” Yusuf says. “One can, right?”  
  
They fall silent after that, save for Yusuf’s questions about how Ariadne takes her eggs and the gentle sizzle of bacon in the pan. Ariadne settles into one of the barstools along the counter, watching Yusuf’s back as he watches the food. When he does slide the eggs and bacon onto a plate and turn around he starts for a moment.  
  
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he says. Ariadne has to look down at herself to confirm this is, in fact, true, even though she probably should’ve noticed already: it’s too long by half, and it smells like a stranger.  
  
“I guess I am,” she says. “Breakfast?”  
  
He slides her a plate and sits down besides her.  
  
“What do you want to do today?” he asks. “Central Park? Staten Island Ferry? Something that’s not touristy as shit?”  
  
“Something touristy as shit,” Ariadne says. “Anything, really.”  
  


> Subject: Re: Eames, 13 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> Yeah, Eames is great. He works at Bean Surfin’ most weekday mornings, stop by and he’ll give you discount joe (and whatever else they sell, I mostly go for the coffee).
> 
> -Ari

  
So Eames isn’t a thief. Arthur supposes he should be pleased, but this just means he can’t homoerotically beat him up and then call the police and never see him again. He could, he supposes, ask Eames not to surf here, but even Arthur knows that asking someone to leave because he’s unreasonably attracted to them is unreasonable.  
  
So he looks at his laptop for a moment, and then swings it shut. Eames is somewhere outside, surfing, Arthur supposes. In his goddamn wetsuit. After they finished their coffees he had left, saying he would change out by the car, and Arthur could come watch if he wanted. Arthur had blinked at him very rapidly and declined.  
  
Thinking about it now, about Eames’ body encased in tight black slick of a wetsuit, Arthur can feel something warm sinking from his stomach to his groin, and the feeling is somewhere between queasy and aroused.  
  
Arthur’s always been good at nipping thoughts like this in the bud; holding them off until he can release them, quietly and quickly, in private. Revealing attraction leads only to ruin--but then there’s Eames, wearing his sexuality boldly and lightly, letting a sliver of tongue out to wet his lips when Arthur had stretched after rising from the couch, and then laughing, just as lightly, at Arthur’s sniped rejection.  
  
It’s the combination that makes Arthur ache--that makes him want to slip back into the shower and come with his forehead pressed against the cool tile and the water rushing down on all sides, washing it away.  
  
It would be easy, Arthur suspects, to go outside and tell Eames that yes they can sleep together, or course they should fuck, here on the beach where sand will get in all sorts of uncomfortable orifices. It would be so easy and delicious, just a brief thing, people have meaningless sex on vacation all the time.  
  
Arthur suspects, though, that it would also be easy to fall in love, just a little bit, just a little bit too much.  
  
He goes outside anyway, against his better judgment, to face the green and gold of the shore and the dusky mountains and fathomless blue of the sea. And Eames--Eames will probably be there, too. Still, faced with the bright warmth of the sun, a small weight lifts, and when Arthur’s eyes snag on the dark silhouette out among the waves it doesn’t give him as much pause as it might. This is Arthur’s vacation. He’ll sit on the beach if he damn well pleases, and if he wants to watch the surfer bob and weave amongst the waves, that doesn’t have to mean anything at all.  
  
Arthur’s not sure how long he sits there, watching Eames rise and ride and occasionally fall, before the man himself emerges from the surf, trailing water.  
  
The wetsuit is honestly more discomfiting than it had been when Arthur imagined it, all the lines enhanced with the glint of water. He’s distracted from the sharp jut of hipbones by Eames shaking off his head, running his fingers through his hair, and as he approaches his eyes come into sharp focus.  
  
But Arthur is not going to talk about his goddamn _eyes_.  
  
“Nice madras,” Eames says wryly, and that’s enough to snap Arthur out of whatever trance he might have been in.  
  
“Are the shorts going to be a problem?” he asks, and Eames shakes his head, hiding a grin.  
  
“No,” he says. “You just look like the definition of a preppy bloke on vacation. I suppose you also packed your seersucker?”  
  
“So I’m supposed to wear, what, shirts with macaws on them?” Arthur asks.  
  
“You could just wear your usual clothes,” Eames suggests, and Arthur purses his lips. These are his usual clothes, at least when going to the beach. But the Hamptons aren’t Hawaii.  
  
“Don’t worry too much about it,” Eames says, settling down into the sand besides him. “I like it.”  
  
Arthur snorts.  
  
“Does that line work on all the boys?” he asks. “ _I like it_?”  
  
“Does it sound that poncy when I say it?”  
  
“Probably,” Arthur says. His arms are stretched over his kneecaps, hands dangling, and he looks at the water, not at Eames. “I’m not going to sleep with you, just so you know.”  
  
“Are you straight, then?” Eames asks.  
  
“No.”  
  
There’s a moment of silence that stretches on, dissolves into lapping water. Arthur imagines he can see the tide coming in, as he waits, waves reaching progressively higher on the shore.  
  
“Okay,” Eames says.  
  
“Okay?” Arthur echoes. He’s relieved to find his voice doesn’t crack, but it comes out faded and small. Thankfully Eames doesn’t seem to hear; he’s getting to his feet again, and he turns around and offers Arthur a hand.  
  
“That’s not the only service I offer,” he says. Arthur glances at the proffered hand and gets up on his own, and Eames just keeps on talking. “What were you thinking to do today? I could take you to Pali Lookout.”  
  
“Esther mentioned Lanikai.”  
  
“That’s best saved for a morning,” Eames says decisively. “Let’s go up to Pali. And I know a place, we can get lunch and ices.”  
  
Arthur agreeing to this seems to be a foregone conclusion, and so he’s not entirely surprised when he finds himself clambering into Eames’ strange green car. Eames navigates with languid ease, pointing out landmarks that seem to exist as landmarks primarily in his own head. A bright, busy stretch of shorefront goes uncommented, as does a house that could easily pass for a mansion, but he points out a tree here, a road that leads somewhere, the place where someone he and Ariadne know lives.  
  
“There’s a waterfall, that way,” Eames says when they’re coming back pointing to a dirt track down a valley. “We should go there. Tomorrow?”  
  
Arthur considers asking Eames, then, who he is. He shifted from flirt to friend within moments, and it’s disconcerting. Arthur dodged a bullet, probably, in outright refusing to sleep with him--it would have been just a lark for Eames, and then he’d retreat into this jolly tour guide persona, or some other one, aloof Englishman, maybe, or superior surfer.  
  
If he really is so protean Arthur shouldn’t trust him in the least, should be too on edge to enjoy Eames’ company as much he does, regardless, but when they get up to the Pali Lookout Eames is talking enthusiastically about some bit of Hawaiian history, a battle or something, and then the subject segues gracelessly into Hawaiian myths.  
  
“Close your eyes,” Eames says, when the car is winding its way upwards. “It’s better from the side.”  
  
Arthur looks at him in a look meant to imply that he won’t do this, what the fuck, but Eames is watching the road.  
  
“Just do it,” he says. “Trust me.”  
  
Arthur _doesn’t_ , but he closes his eyes anyway, lets the world fall away and congeal in sounds and flickers of light on his eyelids. It goes dark, bright, dark again, and then Eames the car is slowing and groaning.  
  
“You should be in second,” Arthur says.  
  
“Your eyes should be shut,” Eames says.  
  
“I can _hear_ it,” Arthur says. “You’re killing your clutch. And I probably should open my eyes, check you aren’t driving us off a cliff.”  
  
“You can open them now, anyway,” Eames says after a moment, during which the car accelerates and slides into darkness again. “If you shut up about the clutch.”  
  
“Like I need your permission--” Arthur starts, and then he opens his eyes. “Oh.”  
  
They’re pulling through a tunnel, but already Arthur can see the island unfurling before them like a fresh new thing, bright and green, hemmed by sea.  
  
“Yes,” Eames says, sounding pleased in the simplest way. “Exactly.”  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Eames, 13 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> He also claims to sunbathe nude here.
> 
> AF

  
Ariadne lets Yusuf develop their itinerary, because her plan had consisted of going out onto the street and walking in any direction until she hit upon something interesting, but Yusuf says there too much to see to go about it that way.  
  
“It’s not about seeing everything,” she tells him, mostly to be contrary.  
  
“It should be,” he says. He’s produced a map from somewhere, and it’s spread out on the table between them, while Yusuf jabs at it intermittently to indicate a route.  
  
“We could just stay here and have sex,” Ariadne says, and Yusuf looks up at her, wrinkling his brow.  
  
“Don’t you want to ride the Staten Island Ferry? It’s _free_.”  
  
“So am I.”  
  
Yusuf looks at her again, leans forward and puts a finger on her nose.  
  
“Not that the offer isn’t tempting. But aren’t you here to see the city? Not just to fuck some bloke in a posh apartment.”  
  
Ariadne is _here_ to not be constantly presented with the reality of her father’s death. She’s living in his house, for fuck’s sake--he left her _the house_ , the one he had kept as a retreat even though he and her mother lived in Honolulu. Sex is a good distraction, good as any, better than most.  
  
But she can’t tell Yusuf that. She hardly knows him.  
  
“No boats,” she says finally.  
  
“Afraid you’ll remember that you’re on an _island_?” Yusuf asks, grinning, and Ariadne shrugs.  
  
“Kind of.”  
  
“Central Park it is, then,” he says. “And the Met.”  
  
Ariadne nods. The Met is good. The Met is something she is interested in but not dad, no, he tired of art museums after one gallery and usually baled to do something else.  
  
“I’d rather be fishing,” he’d grumble, hiding a grin. “I’ll go if you like, Ari.”  
  
And she’d say no, that was fine, and he’d just wait outside until she was done.  
  
“Alright, then?” Yusuf asks, and Ariadne shakes herself out of her head and nods again.  
  
“Yes,” she says. “That sounds good. But no seafood, alright?”  
  
Yusuf gives her a peculiar look.  
  
“No seafood,” he repeats. “Right.”

  


> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Eames, 13 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> Nope, that’s him hitting on you. Congratulations! He’s probably good for a fling if you’re up front about the whole thing. Not bad in the sack--or so I hear ;)
> 
> -Ari
> 
> p.s. If you mess him up, though, I will make a copy of your keys and come back here and piss in your bed. And some other places, I’m not telling where, but it’s not going to be the toilet :) So, you know, just be upfront and honest and keep your sex safe.

  
Arthur’s first thought when he gets Ariadne’s reply is that he’s going to change his locks when he gets home, no doubt about it.  
  
His second thought is why Ariadne put a winky face after the comment about Eames being good in the sack. Does that mean they slept together? Is sleeping with Eames something that comes with the house? He imagines the conversation happening in real life: “Or so I hear.” Wink.  
  
What’s the wink-object relationship? Is the wink about Eames not being bad in the sack, or is it about the “or so I hear”? Because whatever part it applies to is probably false, and so either Eames is, in fact, bad in the sack (Arthur finds that hard to believe), or Ariadne has slept with him.  
  
This would be significantly easier if Arthur knew anyone from Oahu other than Eames and Ariadne to ask, and perhaps Esther, if Arthur knew where to find her.  
  
Eames shows up in the kitchen the next morning bearing another cup of coffee, this one with the sweetness slightly reduced and the espresso slightly increased, and the jolt of caffeine and bitterness is enough to push him over the edge and into the daylight.  
  
“Wear something you can go for a swim in, yeah?” Eames is saying, indicating his own dress by example.  
  
“What?” Arthur asks.  
  
“For the falls?” Eames says. “We’re going today.”  
  
Arthur’s trying to remember if he agreed to this.  
  
“I mentioned it on the way up to Pali,” Eames says. “Pointed out the road, didn’t I? Now come on, we need to beat the tourists.”  
  
“I’ll just get changed, then,” Arthur says after an uncomfortable moment where they both look at one another like they’re expecting the Rosetta stone to appear at any moment and translate this situation. Once this waterfall is done with maybe Eames will feel his tour guide duties have been fulfilled and leave Arthur to enjoy the rest of this vacation in peace.  
  
Or something. Peace or something.  
  
Eames insists on taking his green wreck of a car again, even though Ariadne has a perfectly decent wreck of a car herself, in a respectable red. Or, if not quite respectable, at least somewhat normal.  
  
“Ariadne’s car,” Eames repeats when Arthur suggests it. “Stay away from that car.”  
  
“It’s a convertible,” Arthur says, because Eames seems like the sort of person who would be enthusiastic about convertibles.  
  
“It’s a death trap,” Eames says. “Please don’t drive it. Ever.”  
  
Arthur snorts a little, and Eames shakes his head.  
  
“ _Ariadne_ can only drive it because it’s her spirit animal. I can’t believe she even left you the keys.”  
  
“Spirit animal.”  
  
“Her words, not mine.”  
  
“But you used them,” Arthur says, and Eames flashes him another of those ridiculous grins--an unabashedly joyful one, like he’s just happy to be alive. ‘Who are you?’ Arthur wants to ask, not for the first time. He doubts he’d get a straight answer to that one. It’s a hard question, anyway, when it’s asked properly and not being howled out by Pete Townshend _et al_.  
  
So they’re in Eames’ car again, windows rolled down and breeze flowing through the car like a current. Arthur lets his elbow hang out the window and inhales the warm salt air. It tastes good--nearly sweet.  
  
“How’d you end up in Hawaii?” Arthur asks.  
  
“Followed the waves, brah,” Eames says, then laughs. “That’s a lie.”  
  
They’re both silent for a moment, and then Eames continues.  
  
“Sometimes you just find yourself in a good place, yeah? And you may as well stick around for as long as you can. Turned out to be a decent amount of time, in my case. What about you?”  
  
“I like New York,” Arthur says, and Eames turns to study him for a moment before deciding that answer is acceptable, and nodding.  
  
“I know it’s a cliche--”  
  
“And Hawaii’s not?” Eames interjects.  
  
“I suppose we’re in the same boat, then,” Arthur says. “Just different coasts.”  
  
“Yes,” Eames says. “Do tell Mr.--”  
  
“Faraday,” Arthur supplies.  
  
“Mr. Faraday,” Eames asks, rolling the ‘r’ superfluously. “Do tell, why not Boston? D.C.? Hartford? Providence?”  
  
“Have nothing on New York,” Arthur says. “And I don’t like politics.”  
  
“Care to get any more specific? Is it the electoral college you’re got a problem with? They really are tossers. Or perhaps you’re concerned someone’s tapped your phone, hm?”  
  
“I don’t believe I ever properly introduced myself,” Arthur says. “Arthur Faraday, formerly of the 10th Special Forces Group, 2nd Battalion.”  
  
“Well, I’ve been a right arse, haven’t I? Formerly--is that usual?”  
  
“No,” Arthur says flatly. “Which is why I don’t tend to properly introduce myself.”  
  
It’s been a long time, actually, since he pulled rank in any situation, and it’s a weird reminder of who he had been and who he might be, still.  
  
“So, ah,” Eames is saying. “You don’t strike me as a military man.”  
  
Arthur doesn’t strike most people as a military man, but he’s found that without the uniform and the hair cut, most people don’t know what to look for.  
  
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Arthur says, and he hopes Eames catches the translation: I don’t want to talk about it, not at all. “I was just making a point.”  
  
“Point taken,” Eames says, and falls silent. Arthur appreciates the silence, allows it to appreciate in value and volume, until the entire car positively hums with it.  
  
Arthur had been an officer of the United States Army. The past tense is imperative: the past tense is all the complicated bits, the thing that should have been a scandal--was so scandalous, in fact, that it absolutely couldn’t be a scandal. It was strange how that had bifurcated his life, when even being in the Army had been undertaken not quite as a lark, but without proper consideration, by someone who was 18 and wouldn’t have been able to afford MIT on his own. After that, things got complicated.  
  
It takes a moment for Arthur to realize that they’ve arrived at where ever it was they were going, but suddenly the car draws to a halt and Eames is outside, slamming the door, stretching out in the early morning sun.  
  
There’s a worn footpath from the parking lot up the valley, pressed through dense vegetation rife with flowers Arthur can’t identify. He attempts to convince himself that he’s not allergic to them.  
  
“What about you?” Arthur asks when the path widens and Eames falls into step beside him. “What were you before--this?”  
  
Eames has to be at least Arthur’s age, has to have been something, done something before washing up on these islands like so much flotsam. Everyone has a past. But Eames just laughs.  
  
“I was everything,” he says. “I’m not sure you want to know.”  
  
“Good pair we make,” Arthur says, and Eames shoots him a sidelong grin.  
  
“What’s the past to compare to the future?” he says. “Come along, Arthur Faraday, I’ll show you.”  
  
Arthur follows Eames, lets him show him.  
  
The waterfall turns out to be not quite so impressive as the pool at its bottom, a rock cradled piece of water of considerable depth, and Eames demonstrates a ledge for jumping, a straight leap that’s long enough that, after Eames jumps, Arthur can see the trail of bubbles in his aftermath and the pale discombobulation of his limbs before his body returns to the surface.  
  
They swim until Eames hears voices on the path and proclaims it time to go, shaking out his hair like a dog and pulling on his t-shirt.  
  
“It’s better when it’s not shared,” he says, and when he looks at Arthur there’s something sly and secret behind his eyes and Arthur, yet again, wants to ask him who he is. Instead he finds himself trailing Eames across the island on a whirlwind tour--this beach, that shanty selling fish, this garden, that peak. When they get back to Ariadne’s the sun is slanting towards evening, and Arthur’s not sure he knows Eames any better than when they began, although now Eames has some small pieces of his story. Not enough to add up to anything much but it’s still more than he’s given Arthur, and when they were skipping stones for no reason Arthur could fathom and Eames had teased some information about Dom and Mal out of him Arthur had been torn between punching him and kissing him, just to get some sort of response, some sort of surprise. ‘Are you a spy?’ he would ask when Eames tumbled to the ground, blood spurting from his nose (or before he pressed his tongue to Eames cock--or then). ‘I don’t know anything,’ Arthur would say. ‘I don’t know a fucking thing. I’ve been decommissioned.’  
  
And then Eames would disappear, as simply and cleanly as he had appeared.  
  
The question Arthur asks Eames instead is not one he’s proud of, but somehow felt easier. They were on Ariadne’s porch, where Arthur had left his laptop that morning (which was phenomenally stupid, and Arthur blamed Eames), and looking at it remind Arthur of that e-mail, with Ariadne’s goddamned wink.  
  
Maybe Eames isn’t a spy, but a weird pleasure slave who comes with the house, who does whatever he suspects will make the occupant happiest. If that’s the case, he’s read Arthur entirely wrong.  
  
“Are you and Ariadne?” he says, making a vague gesture with his hands.  
  
“What?” Eames asks, squinting.  
  
“Have you had sex with Ariadne?” Arthur says after a moment’s consideration. Even with the consideration it was probably a bad idea, because Eames is grinning a little.  
  
“Gossiping about me, were you? Jealous?”  
  
“She just said something, is all,” Arthur says, trying so hard to make it sound casual that it will never actually sound casual.  
  
Eames puts his hands on the small of his back, leaning backwards as if to crack it.  
  
“I dated her brother,” he says.  
  
“Ariadne’s brother?” Arthur asks. He remembers this, something about someone stopping by with fish, but he’s looked around and there’s no photos of Ariadne with a similarly petite brunet in the house, no evidence of any brothers whatsoever.  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says, shouldering past Arthur into the house. “There should be a picture of him in here, they’re pretty close. Ah--yes.”  
  
Arthur trails after him, letting the screen door shut with a slam. Eames hands him one of the small picture frames Arthur had already inspected: Ariadne with a Hawaiian man Arthur thought has her boyfriend, arms around shoulders, grinning at an unseen photographer. There’s another where Ariadne is puckering as if to kiss him on the cheek.  
  
“Half brother, actually,” Eames says to Arthur’s unspoken question. “You didn’t know this? Ariadne’s biological father split before she was born, and when her mom remarried Ariadne got on so well with the new husband that he adopted her. That’s why she has a hyphenated last name. So, yeah, Niko is her half brother.”  
  
That explains some things, except now Arthur has to deal with the fact that Eames _dated_ this guy who looks--well, Arthur can’t fault his taste, but this Niko makes him feel a little inadequate and a lot like he’s probably not Eames’ type, Eames was probably flirting with him out of misplaced obligation. Because he’s not weak but his muscles have always been more wiry than bulky. Or perhaps it’s better explained this way: Arthur has been accused of being a twink, when he slouches a certain way. Niko could never be accused of being a twink.  
  
“He is quite fit, isn’t he?” Eames says when Arthur shows no signs of setting the photograph down.  
  
“I thought he was with Ariadne,” Arthur says, and Eames spits out a little laugh.  
  
“Got that a little wrong, didn’t you?” he says.  
  
“And Niko?” Arthur asks. “Why didn’t you two work out?”  
  
“Oh, you know,” Eames says. “Sometimes things just don’t work out.”  
  
Arthur does not know. He would like Eames to explain it to him: did they decide that, between the pair of them, there were too many bulky muscles for a one relationship? Could Niko bench-press more than Eames? Did Niko’s mouth always taste like fish? Inquiring minds want to know.  
  
Mostly Arthur’s, but this is the closest thing to personal information Eames has presented, so Arthur will take what he can get.  
  
“He was a little young,” Eames supplies. “We didn’t want the same things. What about you?”  
  
“What about me what?” Arthur asks, squinting. Eames is standing in an westward facing window, his silhouette sketched by sunlight.  
  
“Your last ex,” Eames says. “Why did you break up?”  
  
“We didn’t,” Arthur says, and he can see Eames balk a little. “I mean, there wasn’t. A last ex, I mean.” Arthur releases a little laugh. “Unless you count--but we weren’t dating. He said he was straight. I just, you know--”  
  
Arthur doesn’t know. Mostly he doesn’t know why he’s telling Eames this, because it’s no one’s business but his own, because that story is so old that even the scab has faded into blemished skin. He can’t make out Eames’ face, which in some ways makes it easier, because if there was pity there he wouldn’t be able to stand it.  
  
“It’s not a good story,” Arthur says at last. “You and this Niko must get along alright if you’re still friends with his sister, but it was never like that for me. With anyone.”  
  
“No one?” Eames asks, and Arthur laughs again, too sharp even to his own ears.  
  
“There were some chances,” he says. “But I never took them.”  
  
He’s surprised at how easily the words come out, because as soon as they’re there, floating in the air between himself and Eames, Arthur knows they’re too much. They roll through his head on repeat, and each time they sound worthy of whatever pity Eames might be wearing on his face.  
  
“Arthur--” Eames starts to say, and Arthur shook his head sharply.  
  
“Thank you,” he says. “You’ve been an excellent guide. But I think I’ll do well on my own from here.”  
  
Eames doesn’t say anything at all, just stand there.  
  
“Please leave,” Arthur says.  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Eames, 13 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Ariadne:
> 
> Don’t worry, I have no intention of having a “fling,” as you say, with your Mr. Eames.
> 
> -AF

  
“I think Arthur would disapprove of our little escapades,” Ariadne tells Yusuf when she checks her e-mail in the morning.  
  
“Sexcapades, you mean?” he says, and chortles to himself before pulling Ariadne closer by the waist and burying his nose in her hair, peering at the laptop screen over her head. “Who is this Eames character?”  
  
“Friend of mine,” Ariadne says. “Local barista-cum-surf-bum. He’s actually a retired crook of some sort, though he doesn’t like to talk about it all that much. But when he’s drunk he tells absurd stories.”  
  
“Sounds like he’s gotten under Arthur’s skin,” Yusuf says. “He tends to get prickly, when that happens.”  
  
“Eames will do that,” Ariadne says. “Good looking, if you like that sort of thing.”  
  
“What sort of thing?”  
  
“Rakish.”  
  
“And I’m not rakish?”  
  
“Rakish and gay,” Ariadne amends. “If you like rakish and gay, Eames is the first place I’d point you.”  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Yusuf says. “Though it’s not precisely what I’m looking for right now.”  
  
“Yeah?” Ariadne asks.  
  
“Yes,” Yusuf says. “Because I believe I’ve found a fling of my own.”  
  
“Who is she? Trollop.”  
  
Yusuf laughs and then pulls himself out of bed, selecting a shirt from the floor and shrugging it on.  
  
“What do you think today, Times Square? We could get tickets to a show, pizza for lunch.”  
  
“Or we could--not,” Ariadne says, and Yusuf looks at her.  
  
“What do you want to do, than?” he asks, and Ariadne sits there for a moment. Even Arthur’s guest bed is large, and sitting in the middle of it and the nest of covers makes her feel like a small child.  
  
“I don’t know,” she says. “Can we go to Central Park again?”  
  
“Sure,” he says easily. “And the Museum of Natural History, how about that?”  
  
“Yeah,” Ariadne says. “I just--I don’t really want to sit still, I guess.”  
  
Yusuf gives Ariadne another peculiar look, like he doesn’t know what to make of her, but then he just shrugs.  
  
“I’ve done the New York tourist thing before,” he says. “So as long as you’re enjoying yourself, we can do whatever.”  
  
“I am,” Ariadne says, clambering out of the bed. “Enjoying myself, I mean. Thanks for this.”  
  
“It’s my pleasure, really,” Yusuf says, glancing down at her chest. “Put some clothes on, you look a little nippy.”  
  
“Thank you, also,” Ariadne says. “For looking at my tiny tits instead of my face. People are always looking at my face, and I don’t understand that. _I_ would look at my tits.”  
  
“Shut up,” Yusuf says. “Get your clothes on, you. I’ll make us breakfast, unless you want street bagels.”  
  
“Street bagels,” Ariadne repeats. “That sounds excellent.”  
  
“Street bagels it is, then,” Yusuf says. “Saves me from being your personal room service.”  
  
“Oh, poor you,” Ariadne mutters. “I’m not doing you a favor, taking you in off the street, letting you interrupt my vacation.”  
  
“If it weren’t for me you’d probably spend your entire vacation sitting around Arthur’s apartment,” Yusuf says. “Eating ice cream and drinking beer like you just went through some terrible break up--”  
  
Yusuf looks up at her, startled.  
  
“Wait, did you?”  
  
“No, I--”  
  
“Is this a rebound thing? Because I refuse to be the rebound guy.”  
  
“No,” Ariadne repeats. “It’s not a break up thing. You aren’t a rebound guy.”  
  
Yusuf studies her face now, evidently finds something there satisfactory and leaves her be.  
  
“Women think I’m _nice_ for some reason.”  
  
“It’s because you make us breakfast,” Ariadne says. “You can do whatever the hell you want, and we’ll ignore all that if you make us breakfast.”  
  
“I’m not,” Yusuf says. “I’m not a good rebound guy. I’m not particularly nice.”  
  
“I’ll let you know if I’m looking for nice,” Ariadne says evenly. “But I’ve already found my fling.”  
  
“Who is he?” Yusuf asks. “Slut.”  
  
Ariadne quirks her lips into a grin and Yusuf returns it with one of his own.  
  
“He is a slut,” she says. “Like you wouldn’t believe--”  
  
Yusuf slaps her on the ass and prods her towards the bathroom.  
  
“And _you_ have terrible breath,” he says. “Come on, hop to it, we’re burning daylight.”  
  
It seems like the momentum of Yusuf’s prodding carries Ariadne through getting dressed and out onto the streets, which are emptier than they were the night prior--a few joggers, a few people walking their dogs and families on their way to church. It takes them some time to locate a food cart and by the time they do Ariadne’s stomach is making small rumblings and Yusuf is poking it like that does any good.  
  
“You should’ve let me make breakfast. We could’ve had _bacon_.”  
  
“Says the one who was bitching about making breakfast,” Ariadne mutters. “The only day you did that was _yesterday_.”  
  
“And it was damn good,” Yusuf replies. “Damn good breakfast.”  
  
“In exchange for damn good sex.”  
  
“So you’re, what, a prostitute? Do you hang around Denny’s turning tricks for pancake platters?”  
  
“No,” Ariadne says. “IHoP.”  
  
“I see,” Yusuf nods. “Classy.”  
  
“Classier than Waffle House,” Ariadne says. “Though I have never actually been to a Waffle House.”  
  
They do eventually find a cart and obtain two bagels slathered in cream cheese, so much so that Ariadne has to scrape some off into a napkin and throw it out. Yusuf looks at her balefully.  
  
“Perfectly good cream cheese,” he says.  
  
“You know, when I first saw you I thought you were a vagrant? You’re doing little to convince me otherwise.”  
  
“Would you like to see my most recent piece in _Biochemistry_? I carry the reference in my wallet to silence doubters like you.”  
  
“Just call me Thomas,” Ariadne says. It’s something her father used to say, she realizes after it comes out of her mouth. She sounds like him--cheerful and unashamed, but the cheeriness fades as soon as that idea is in her head. She should just say it: ‘You know, my dad just died.’ It’s only a few words--six, when she counts. But it seems like such a downer, and she’s fairly certain Yusuf is sticking around for sex and banter, not for moping. She refuses to mope.  
  
Dad would hate that, anyway.  
  
Yusuf seems unfazed by her moments of silence, and they continue that way--gnawing on bagels and plodding down the sidewalk. Ariadne likes the rhythm their feet fall into, a steady beat that’s interrupted only by stoplights, other pedestrians, sundry obstacles. She wishes death were as easy an obstacle to dodge as a sidewalk rubbish bin, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead it lingers and trails around after her, reappearing in the moments when she thought it had been lost entirely.  
  
Ariadne understands that this is how it happens and eventually the freshness will fade to numbness, but she’s not entirely sure she wants that, either. She wants to remember everything, every piece, because he was her father.  
  
She should call her mother, or Niko, but speaking with them is always a reminder that he died, really and truly, and that isn’t what she wants at all.  
  
She doesn’t know what she wants, not really, or at least not as much as she thought she did and when they get to the brink of the park, where the trees have been largely divested of their leaves and the branches are scrawny and bare, she wonders if she wanted to come back here because she saw herself in them, in the way they trace themselves against the stark grey sky, the flat buildings.  
  
But the leaves that fall in autumn come back, always.  
  
“So,” Yusuf says. “Where to?”  
  
“Anywhere,” Ariadne says, wondering how many times she’s said that to Yusuf now. But he doesn’t seem to mind, just navigates them down one path and then haphazardly down another, winding through the park until eventually they reach the castle which is not at the center but would be, if life were poetic.  
  
“Belvedere Castle,” Yusuf says. “Up we go.”  
  
There are other groups at the castle, but Yusuf and Ariadne wind their way up the spiral steps to the top and look out across the park.  
  
“Penny for your thoughts,” Yusuf says. “You’ve been quiet ever since I brought up biochem. I know it’s a turn off, but--”  
  
“No,” Ariadne grins. “It’s not that. I get lost in my head sometimes.”  
  
“So?” Yusuf asks. “What is it?”  
  
He’s not looking at her--he’s leaning against the wall and examining the review, like maybe it will answer his questions or somehow reveal the answers like a scrying glass.  
  
He wants to know. He asked.  
  
“It’s not a thing that’s really--” Ariadne isn’t sure what she’s going to say. “I mean, this is a fling, right? It’s supposed to be fun. I’m not thinking anything fun.”  
  
“Ariadne,” Yusuf says, sounding amused and fiddling through the air to catch her hand. “You propositioned me within an hour of meeting me.”  
  
“Did I do that?” Ariadne asks. “Don’t recall.”  
  
“I’d hardly call you _shy_.”  
  
He rubs the back of her hand with his thumb, and they’re both silent for a moment while Ariadne considers this, weighs and measures it.  
  
“My dad died,” she says. “At the beginning of October. It was a bit sudden. It was--he was my dad.”  
  
“He was a fisherman,” Yusuf says, and when Ariadne looks at him askance he adds: “No boats. No seafood.”  
  
“Oh,” she says. “Right. Sorry about that, weird rules.”  
  
“No,” Yusuf says. “It’s okay. ”  
  
“This vacation was to get away from the islands,” Ariadne interjects. “Dad was kind of a local fixture. Pity gets tiresome.”  
  
Yusuf nods, and is silent a moment before saying, “Well, then, what do you want now?”  
  
“We could go the museum,” she says, and Yusuf nods.  
  
“Let’s.”  
  
“Thank you,” Ariadne says, catching his eyes and holding them. “Really.”  
  
There’s a wind picking up as they head down the stairs, whipping around them in a tiny vortex, and Ariadne reaches up and pulls Yusuf’s head down to hers, kisses him chastely on the lips. This is more than either of them bargained for, she knows.  
  
“Yusuf,” Ariadne asks when they’re back on the path, winding through the ramble in the general direction of Central Park West. The leaves are crisp underfoot, sharp and crackling. “Why aren’t you a nice guy?”  
  
“Because I sleep with pretty girls still reeling from deaths in their immediate family,” Yusuf says, and Ariadne shakes her head.  
  
“No, really,” she says. “I showed you mine, now you show me yours.”  
  
“My what?”  
  
“Your whatever. Your scars. Everyone has them.”  
  
There’s something quietly amused in his glance.  
  
“You’re very forthright, aren’t you?”  
  
“Most of the time, yes. But I thought you knew that.”  
  
“Just a comment.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“When you think someone’s _nice_ ,” Yusuf starts, hissing out the significant word, “you expect certain things of them. I don’t actually meet those expectations.”  
  
“Okay,” Ariadne says.  
  
“Sometimes I subvert them to my own advantage.”  
  
“And you’re aware of it, so?” Ariadne shoves her shoulder against Yusuf’s. “Still don’t sound that bad to me.”  
  
“Is it nice, though? Is anyone, really?” Yusuf presses, shaking his head. “I fundamentally dislike being trusted with anything but my chemistry.”  
  
“So you’re a heartbreaker, then,” Ariadne says after a moment’s consideration. “So am I, I’ve been told.”  
  
“And I put myself through school dealing drugs,” Yusuf says finally. “That I synthesized in the college labs.”  
  
“I didn’t do that one,” Ariadne says. “But telling wasn’t so bad, was it?”  
  
“It’s more complicated than that,” Yusuf says, and Ariadne gives him a sardonic glance.  
  
“You think I don’t know that? Come on, dead animals are waiting.”  
  
They stop at a cart outside the museum for hot dogs for lunch, like the theme of the day is eating street food instead of spilling personal information and looking at dead things--though the trees aren’t dead, Ariadne reminds herself. Just waiting, until spring.  
  
The halls of the museum are quiet and dim and there are dead animals and dioramas and it’s all about how Ariadne had expected it to be. She wonders, when they’re there, looking at a herd of elephants that look like they’re going somewhere but will never move, if there was something else Yusuf was trying to tell her, something she didn’t quite catch in the muddle of him insisting he wasn’t nice, and had been a drug dealer.  
  
Still was, probably. That was probably the problem--he still _was_ a dealer, didn’t want to admit it. Ariadne allows that piece to settle in her mind, hoping that it will fit in somewhere and make sense because if it doesn’t--  
  
Well, it shouldn’t matter, should it? She’s going back to Hawaii, Yusuf is going on to a postdoc, and he can have his secrets if he wants, and keep them. It’s not Ariadne’s business, really. She’s always been too nosy, incapable of leaving well enough alone, creating mysteries where there were none, anyway, and then stumbling into secrets she didn’t want to know, not really.  
  
By the time they leave the museum it’s fast approaching evening, and Ariadne’s not entirely sure how they spent so much time there, barely reading the plaques, looking at the exhibits like they somehow could make sense entirely on their own.  
  
In some ways, they do.  
  
They’re quiet on the walk back, and Ariadne takes in the way the buildings are wed to the sky in the dim grey moments before the sun begins to set and turn the world on its head.  
  
“You aren’t taking advantage of me, you know,” Ariadne says when they’re going up the stairs. “If anything, we’re taking advantage of each other. It’s perfectly mutual.”  
  
“Is it?” Yusuf asks, and Ariadne nods, reaching up to finger the buttons on his shirt as she pushes the door open.  
  
“Oh, yes,” she says. “And, frankly, when the sex is this good, we really shouldn’t stop just because of whatever emotional baggage I might have brought with me. I tried to leave that in Hawaii, anyway.”  
  
“I do like it when you’re frank,” he says, bending to lick her ear.  
  
As she begins to unbutton Yusuf’s shirt, Ariadne wishes everything could be this easy.  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Eames, 14 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> Actually, I don’t think Eames is his last name.
> 
> -Ari

  
The first day without Eames, Arthur doesn’t leave the house--or rather, the beach. He doesn’t even get dressed--he wraps one of Ariadne’s sarongs around his waist and goes outside to sit on the shore. It feels vaguely ridiculous, but the sarong is comfortable, and soft, and there’s no one there to see, anyway. It feels easier than putting on proper clothes, and so he sits on the shore, dips in the water intermittently, reads the book he brought and naps on the sand in the afternoon. It’s nice, he tells himself. This is what he wanted out of a vacation, he reminds himself. No convoluted emotions, no flipping warmth in his belly, just something simple and easy, a break from complexity, cool breezes and warm sand.  
  
Not that he even wanted a vacation in the first place, but here he is.  
  
It’s the second day when things go pear shaped, ever so slightly.  
  
He decides to take Ariadne’s car out for a spin. It seems innocuous enough, sitting in the drive, the keys are on the kitchen table with a short note: _1\. There’s a collar on the gearshift. Pull it up to get to reverse. 2. Try not to use third gear if at all possible. 3. Have fun and don’t crash my baby!_ Arthur studies it for a moment before deciding that Eames had overstated the issue so that Arthur would need to rely on him for transportation, because Eames is sneaky. Clearly. Probably.  
  
Arthur’s suspicions are confirmed when the car proves to be perfectly amiable, giving Arthur no trouble whatsoever. He wishes he would drive past Eames ridiculous green coffin on wheels, and then he’d wave jauntily and prove that no, Arthur absolutely does not needs Eames’ assistance to have an enjoyable vacation. Arthur can do just fine on his own, thanks ever so, and if he does it on his own then he doesn’t need to have uncomfortable conversations about things that really should be left in the past, conversations that incite feelings Arthur does not want to have.  
  
He drives on, keeping as close to the coast as possible and pushing vindictive thoughts of Eames out of his head. He’s in Hawaii for a few more days yet. He can make this the vacation he would have taken, without Eames, go to the leeward side of the island and explore some of the tourist attractions in Honolulu. He had done research before he came, drawn up a list of things he’d like to see: the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, for one, Hanauma Bay and the Valley of the Temples. Which is on this side of Oahu: he could go there today, now. There’s a GPS on his phone. Maybe he will.  
  
Arthur pulls into the first parking lot he reaches to sort out the navigation on his phone, and a few moments in park gets him maps, and directions to go back the way he came, and a car that won’t start.  
  
The battery’s obviously working fine, so it’s something nebulous in the engine. Arthur studied engineering in undergrad, but it’s been a long time, and his degree was actually in civil engineering, anyway. He pops the hood to look at the engine, like some solution will materialize, and then when one doesn’t he slams the hood of the car shut and goes around the front to try starting it again.  
  
It doesn’t.  
  
Arthur has neither Esther nor Eames’ numbers in his phone, which means the only person he can reasonably call is Ariadne. When no one picks up at his apartment he calls her cell phone, even though it feels a little invasive--he has the number for emergencies, which he supposes this is.  
  
A woman picks up on the third ring, and he can hear city sounds in the background: cars, chatter, honking. It’s only been a few days, but he _misses_ it, which is a kind of shocking revelation. He knew New York was where he wanted to be, but missing it feels like something more.  
  
“Ariadne?” he asks. “This is Arthur.”  
  
“Arthur!” she crows, then says as an aside to someone. “It’s Arthur.”  
  
“I thought that was obvious,” comes Yusuf’s voice, slightly muffled.  
  
“Yusuf’s with you?” Arthur asks. “Tell him I say hello.”  
  
“Did you just call the apartment phone?” Ariadne says. “Sorry, we were in bed.”  
  
“You were--” Arthur says. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”  
  
“These things happen,” Ariadne says, and it occurs to Arthur that they’re sleeping together, they’re definitely sleeping together, probably all over his flat and his furniture and in his shower.  
  
“I hope you’re in the guest room,” he says after a moment, sighing.  
  
“Oh, we are,” Ariadne chortles.  
  
“And if you mess him up, I’ll urinate in your domicile.”  
  
“Don’t worry, we’re taking advantage of each other,” Ariadne says brightly, like that makes any sense. Arthur considers pointing out to her that it doesn’t make sense, that even when you don’t think something’s happening something does, but maybe that bit’s only true of himself.  
  
“Just a tick,” Ariadne says. “Call on the other line.”  
  
Arthur flounders a little at that, because it seems terrifically rude, but Ariadne’s already gone.  
  
“That was Eames,” she says when she returns. “He was wondering how you’re doing? I thought he was showing you around.”  
  
“Not any more,” Arthur says flatly, and if Eames is on the other line Arthur doesn’t really want to tell Ariadne how he’s doing, because then Eames will be smug about it, probably, and Arthur will be--Arthur will be embarrassed.  
  
“Is this about the fling thing?” she says. “Because you don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I just thought you seemed a little uptight. And I know way more about Eames in the sack than I’d like to, but at the very least I can assure you that everything I’ve heard is good.”  
  
“Please stop recommending sex with Eames to me,” Arthur says, and it comes out more earnest than he would like. “I haven’t asked you about Yusuf.”  
  
“And I haven’t told you, but that’s only because he’s right here,” Ariadne says, and Arthur groans. The entire track of this conversation has been waylaid irrevocably, and Arthur’s not entirely sure how to repair it.  
  
“Your car won’t start,” he says finally.  
  
“Oh, that happens,” Ariadne says. “You need to bump the front wheel well on the passenger side with your hip, just a good little jolt, that will set her right.”  
  
“And if that doesn’t?” Arthur asks, trying not to sound as skeptical as he is, which is very.  
  
“It usually does,” Ariadne says. “But I can give you Eames’ number, he just called me because he got off work.”  
  
Arthur would probably prefer the phone number for someone other than Eames, but he’s not sure how to tell Ariadne that in a way that isn’t painfully awkward.  
  
“Or--where are you?” Ariadne asks, and Arthur looks at his stupid phone GPS and tells her as best he can.  
  
“I can give you my brother’s number, too,” she says. “He might be closer if he’s coming from the docks. His name’s Niko? Has he come by at all?”  
  
“No, haven’t met him,” Arthur says, and he’s not sure he wants to. Receiving help from Niko seems at least as bad as calling Eames.  
  
“I guess we’re all avoiding the house, then,” Ariadne says, almost as an aside. “He’s a good guy, though, and he’s probably better with Lemon than Eames is.”  
  
“Lemon?” Arthur asks.  
  
“Because she’s a lemon?” Ariadne says, as if that’s obvious. There’s a small scuffle on the other end of the line, probably Yusuf, and Ariadne laughs at something outside the scope of Arthur’s hearing. He wants to ask Ariadne why--why this is happening, to ask Yusuf if he’s sure this is a good idea, but it’s Ariadne’s phone and it seems weird to demand to speak to Yusuf.  
  
“Right,” he says. “Can I get those numbers?”  
  
The hip thing doesn’t work, and it doesn’t work when Arthur just kicks the wheel well, either, so then he has to look at the two phone numbers Ariadne texted him, sighing. He’s not sure which is the lesser of the two evils: Niko, who probably isn’t a flirt but who Arthur has no particular desire to meet for reasons he doesn’t want to examine, or Eames, who is Eames.  
  
He’s going to call Niko, he decides, because Ariadne said he’d be more useful anyway, only then when Arthur dials the number it rings through to Eames, and fifteen minutes later his terrible green box pulls up in a clatter of gears and gravel and Eames leans through the passenger side window, crooking his elbows over the side.  
  
“Car trouble?” he asks, smirking, and Arthur kind of wants to punch him. “I won’t say I told you so, but I do recall mentioning something about the relative reliability of this car. And saying that it wasn’t very high.”  
  
“I must have missed that,” Arthur said, and Eames throws back his head and laughs. Arthur wants to lick his neck. Arthur does not want to lick his neck.  
  
“I was going to the Valley of the Temples,” he says inanely, but Eames is already up around the front of the car, thumping the side with his fist.  
  
“Give that a try,” he calls back to Arthur, who twists the key in the ignition and almost turns it off when he can tell that it’s going to start this time, of course this fucking time, after Eames thumps the engine _once_ , fuck this.  
  
Eames is laughing again, completely jovial.  
  
“Come on,” he says. “Bring this death trap back to Ariadne’s, and I can drive you up to the Valley, yeah?”  
  
“Thank you for the help,” Arthur says curtly. “But no thank you.”  
  
Eames stops, turns and looking at Arthur, who is sitting in Ariadne’s car with the engine idling roughly.  
  
“I’m going to follow you back to Ariadne’s,” he replies flatly. “And then we can talk about this.”  
  
Arthur spends the drive back to Ariadne’s feeling a heavy sickness in his stomach, somewhere between anticipation and fear, and the more he tries to push it down because he shouldn’t be afraid, because he’s faced things considerably more fearsome than some British man with plump lips and perfect forearms, but here he is, and his heart is fluttering like it’s prom night and he’s hoping, incomprehensibly, that Jackson Franks will finally acknowledge the blow job Arthur gave him in the locker room after soccer practice when both their moms were late to pick them up.  
  
That didn’t happen. Hoping for it had been weakness, one of many, but Arthur had outgrown that particular weakness awhile back, and he didn’t hope for things, and certainly not declarations of love. It was his mother’s fault, for letting him read those romance novels as a kid. It was his father’s fault, for being well and truly besotted with his mother, for behaving as if grand gestures were par for the course.  
  
They aren’t, Arthur reminds himself as he pulls into Ariadne’s drive. But he will have this conversation with Eames and send him on his way, and then they can be done with this whole embarrassing fiasco.  
  
Eames pulls in behind Arthur, effectively parking him in, and Arthur thinks there’s something ironic about that though he’s not sure what. He takes a deep breath and gets out of the car, goes over to Eames.  
  
“So?”  
  
“Come on,” Eames says, reaching out to put a hand on the small of Arthur’s back and guiding him towards the porch, like this is something he does. It sends a shiver running up Arthur’s spine, more than he’d like to admit, like every nerve ending in his body is acutely sensitive to Eames, only Eames, whose hand on Arthur’s back is hot and heavy through the thin seersucker of Arthur’s shirt.  
  
Eames sits down on the porch with his feet on the step, looking out at the ocean, and with little more than a glance he indicates Arthur should sit beside him.  
  
“The other night,” he starts, not turning to look at Arthur. “You said you’d had chances, but you didn’t take them.”  
  
Arthur would prefer it if Eames didn’t latch to that particular statement, but he nods affirmation anyway, because it’s true, he did say that, and he can’t call the words back into his mouth and be done with it.  
  
“Do you want another chance, Arthur?” Eames asks, and his eyes shift slightly, so he’s looking at Arthur out of the corners of them, something unfamiliar glinting across his face. “If you had one, would you take it?”  
  
“A chance at what?” Arthur says finally. It’s a real, true question: he can feel its weight on his tongue, because this question and Eames’ answer to this question matters.  
  
“We could start with a date,” Eames says carefully. “I know a place. Best sushi you’ll ever have.”  
  
“Can I hold you to that?” Arthur asks, and Eames grins.  
  
“Oh, sure,” he says. “You can hold me to anything.”  
  
If that’s a double etendre Arthur doesn’t know what it means, it must be some Hawaiian-British thing, but Eames says it like it’s true, like it means something, and Arthur likes that. He’s not sure about the rest of this--he leaves in less than a week, after all, and Eames is secretive and also a surfing barista, which shouldn’t be a real job if it is.  
  
But Eames has also been more than generous to Arthur, and Arthur likes him.  
  
Arthur _likes_ him, more than he’s liked anyone in a long time, and if Eames is willing to give Arthur a chance despite his behavior--  
  
Arthur finds his hand swimming through the air, almost of its own volition, his finger twining through Eames’.  
  
“Okay,” he says. “Yes.”  
  
Eames turns and looks at him, then, and smiles, his face slowing breaking into the broad, faintly ridiculous grin Arthur recalls from when they first met, the one that doesn’t have anything to hide. It leaves Arthur wondering about the date proposition, because Arthur really just wants to reach across the space separating them and pull Eames’ face to his, kiss him until he’s breathless and grinning even more, and then--  
  
But Jackson Franks taught Arthur about that, what happens after that.  
  
Eames is leaning forward like maybe there is going to be kissing, and Arthur’s breath hitches a little in his throat before Eames bypasses his lips for his ear.  
  
“I’ll pick you up at six,” he whispers, and rises to leave.

> Subject: Lemon, 16 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Your car is terrible, but Eames helped and we got it back home.
> 
> Will not be driving it again.
> 
> AF

  
It’s well into evening when Ariadne slips out of bed to call her mother, but it seems like the right thing at the right time and, also, Yusuf is snoring. She doesn’t remember him snoring any of the other nights, so maybe he’s just lying wrong, but it’s rumbling through the bed and making her jealous that he’s apparently sleeping soundly when she’s still trying to recover from the Staten Island Ferry. It was nice, really, and the boat was nothing like her father’s, but now the fact that she didn’t want to go is disturbing her.  
  
Ariadne loves boats.  
  
So she slips out from under the sprawl of Yusuf’s arm and calls her mother, who picks up on the first ring with a bright, fragile greeting hello. She knows it’s Ariadne, Ariadne realizes. She’s afraid it’s not.  
  
“Mom,” Ariadne starts. “Hi.”  
  
“Ari, dear,” she says. “How’s the city?”  
  
Ariadne sits there for a moment, considering. How _is_ the city? She doesn’t know anything about its state, having only used it to wash her own concerns away, but now she wonders about the state of the city as a whole before finally shaking herself out of that and into the actual question, which is not about New York but about Ariadne herself.  
  
“It’s good,” she says. “I’m good. How are the islands?”  
  
“Not the same without you,” her mom says, and then laughs a little. “They’re never really the same, anyway.”  
  
“Missing dad?” Ariadne asks before she can stop herself, and there’s a moment of quick silence before her mom responds.  
  
“Yes,” she says. “Always.”  
  
“I’m sorry I’m not there,” Ariadne says. “Has Niko been visiting?”  
  
“Yes,” her mother says. “And it’s been lovely, really. Dad wouldn’t want us to mope.”  
  
“I know--but--”  
  
“It’s not as bad as all that, Ari. We miss him because we loved him, and it’s not--the missing will get easier, but the love will stick around.”  
  
Ariadne nods before she realizes her mom can’t see her, can’t see her soft eyes or the curve of her face in the dim light.  
  
“Thank you, mom,” she says, and her mom laughs, a little sadly Ariadne thinks.  
  
“Thank you, dear,” she says. “For calling your poor old mum from your vacation. I know all of this gets tiresome, and you needed a break, but it’s good to hear--”  
  
“No,” Ariadne interjects. “No, that wasn’t it all. If it were just you and Niko, I would have stayed in Hawaii forever, you know? It was everyone else. Feeling like everyone was watching me, waiting for me to cry or do some sort of culturally acceptable mourning thing, go out in black all the time.”  
  
“So what are you doing there, hm?” her mom asks. “Out dancing every night?”  
  
“I met a guy,” Ariadne says, too quickly.  
  
“Oh, Ariadne, honey,” her mother says, voice small. “Just be careful.”  
  
Her mom knows that Ariadne does this, with men (and women, frequently enough that it’s more than an anomaly but not quite a trend)--her mom did it herself, which is how she has Niko and Ariadne both, the husband and the man who left and some before that, besides.  
  
“I will,” Ariadne says, but when she slides back into the guest bed, shunting Eero off onto the floor, she’s not entirely sure she has been.  
  


> Subject: Re: Lemon, 16 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> Sorry about that! So you worked things out with Eames, then?
> 
> -Ari

  
It’s only after Eames leaves that Arthur wonders what to wear, whether he even brought something datewear appropriate. He mostly packed the beach clothes Eames mocked, but Arthur also believes in being prepared for any situation that might arise, and some rifling through his bag produces the oxford he wore on the plane, and pinstripe trousers that aren’t his favorites, but are rather fond of his ass. He wishes he brought a waistcoat, which is would be better yet, but not even he packs waistcoats for vacation.  
  
It’ll do, in a pinch, and it is a pinch because he can’t take Ariadne’s car out to buy something new and doesn’t know where he’d go if he could.  
  
Half past five finds Arthur ready and trying to resist the urge to sit in the hammock because it will rumple him, which leaves him in the kitchen pacing and fidgeting. It’s been ages since he’s been on any sort of date, and most of those were blind ones arranged by Mal with consistently terrible options. Arthur’s not entirely sure how she pegged his taste so wrong, but she had.  
  
Eames though--when Eames arrives Arthur’s not entirely sure what he’s wearing, because the pants aren’t terrible but seem to be made of polyester, and his hair is parted too severely, but then he turns around to walk back to the car and--Arthur wants to bite his ass.  
  
Through the polyester, even. Arthur would suffer that indignity for that ass.  
  
He’s not even sure what he’s thinking at this point. It’s probably the nerves.  
  
Eames drives, of course, and their conversation in the car starts stilted but rapidly moves towards comfortable.  
  
A few shots of sake in, it’s even better, because Eames is reaching across the table to touch Arthur, casually and then a little more, and offering to feed him spider rolls with his chopsticks (Arthur doesn’t know why he accepts it, but the way Eames watches his mouth when he does--it’s worth it).  
  
The shots of sake loosen Eames’ tongue, too, and Arthur is talking about the last time he went to the Met with Mal and Dom, when Mal was pregnant but pretended not to be when people asked when the baby was due, and Eames suddenly interjects.  
  
“They have one of mine, you know,” he says.  
  
“Your what?” Arthur asks.  
  
“The Met,” Eames says, as if this is obvious. “They have one of my paintings.”  
  
“You paint,” Arthur says. “The Met has one of your _paintings_. Ah--which one?”  
  
For some reason he’s having trouble getting a handle on this, and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s drunk or Eames is.  
  
“It’s a _forgery_ ,” Eames hisses. “I probably shouldn’t tell you which one.”  
  
“Oh,” Arthur says, blinking. “Oh--ah--that’s very--congratulations.”  
  
Eames seems to be markedly more sober when he looks at Arthur now.  
  
“Congratulations? I tell you I have a forgery in the Met and you say _congratulations_?”  
  
“Was I supposed to invite you to New York for a visit?” Arthur asks. “It’s not too far from my apartment.”  
  
“You were supposed to say, ‘That’s lovely, Eames, so you’re a forger then?’ and then report me to the feds.”  
  
“I rather doubt you would have told me if you expected me to report you to the feds,” Arthur says dryly.  
  
“I’m retired,” Eames says defensively. “And I’m very good at running.”  
  
“So you told me so I could report you to the feds and you could, what, flee the country by kayak?”  
  
“I _told you_ ,” Eames says. “So you would _know_. I just didn’t expect you to take it this well.”  
  
Eames is fidgeting with his empty shotglass, running his fingers along the rim  
  
“Eames,” Arthur says. “I am a suspiciously young decommissioned army officer who works for a somewhat nebulous consulting firm.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I think the operative word is here is suspicious,” Arthur supplies when Eames persists in looking befuddled.  
  
“Shouldn’t the military be keeping tabs on you?”  
  
“It’s in their best interest to leave us be,” Arthur says simply. “Now, about your forgeries.”  
  
After that, it only gets better, although Arthur does have to wrest the keys from Eames at the end of the night to drive them home.  
  
“I can not possibly be more of a lightweight than you,” Eames mutters. “No.”  
  
“Probably not,” Arthur says. “But I dumped my first several shots in a potted plant in case you turned out to be less than trustworthy.”  
  
“Of _course_ I’m less than trustworthy,” Eames starts, then twists to look at Arthur. They’re close enough together, one of Eames’ arms slung about Arthur’s shoulders, that Arthur can smell the fish and liquor on his breath. “Damn, you’re one paranoid fucker. You thought I was plying you with alcohol to get you to give up military secrets or something?”  
  
Arthur ignores him, swinging the keys to Eames’ car around his ring finger. Eames purses his lips.  
  
“I was plying you with alcohol to get in your pants,” he continues. “Military secrets my ass. No wonder you were all hot and cold at the beginning there, you thought I was a Russian spy.”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur says flatly. “I thought you were Russian.”  
  
“Or James Bond,” Eames says. “You thought I was James Bond! I have a license to--lay-- _you_ , Octopussy.”  
  
“Shut up,” Arthur says as he bends to unlock the car. “Please.”  
  
“You only live twice,” Eames mumbles.  
  
Arthur shoulders Eames into the passenger side as he says, “I’ll die another day.”  
  
“Please stop,” Arthur says once he’s in the car, adjusting the driver’s seat. “This isn’t funny.”  
  
“You won’t say that once you see what I can do with my goldfinger.”  
  
“What do I need to give you to get you to shut up?” Arthur asks.  
  
“The world is not enough,” Eames says, and then he gives Arthur a sly glance. “Or a kiss.”  
  
“I can’t believe you can remember this many Bond titles when you’re drunk,” Arthur says.  
  
“I remember them better I’m drunk, Dr. No,” Eames says, and Arthur scowls and leans across the gearshift pressing his lips against Eames’ quickly and then pulling back.  
  
“You taste like fish and liquor,” he says quickly, and Eames gives him a quirky grin that slowly fades to something else entirely.  
  
“You know,” he says, his voice suddenly borders on husky, low and intimate. “This could be for your eyes only.”  
  
And then he bursts into manic laughter, and Arthur has to remind his cock not to respond to terrible, cruel jokes.  
  
Eames falls asleep on the drive back to Ariadne’s, and Arthur only gets lost once before he has to fish out his phone for directions. When they get there he shakes Eames awake and guides him to Ariadne’s bed, while Arthur himself sleeps on the couch he slept on his first night at Ariadne’s, tired, happy, nearly sated.  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Lemon, 16 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> You could say that. And as long as we’re being invasive, should I be concerned about you and Yusuf?
> 
> AF

  
Yusuf’s the one who decides they should go to the Bronx Zoo.  
  
“Venture off the island,” he says, and Ariadne just shrugs.  
  
“Do you want to do this?” she asks. “Because we should do something that you want to do.”  
  
“I’ve never been,” Yusuf says, and Ariadne nods.  
  
“Yes,” she says. “Then let’s.”  
  
The subway ride out is quiet and jangling, the train steadily draining of people as they leave Manhattan and move north. Ariadne slouches down in her plastic seat, leaning her head on Yusuf’s shoulder, and he throws and arm around her back.  
  
“What should we do tomorrow?” she asks.  
  
She wants to add: ‘I leave on the 19th.’ She doesn’t. They don’t talk about leaving, because Yusuf’s leaving too, and talking about leaving necessitates acknowledging how transitory their relationship is. She imagines that the woman at the other end of the subway car thinks they’re dating, or maybe that they live together: some quiet apartment in the city, not too large, with a stray cat for Yusuf and something for Ariadne. A hammock, maybe. In the woman at the other end of the subway car’s imagination, Ariadne and Yusuf’s relationship has some staying power, and if they break up it will be for a good reason, because they’re sick of one another or something just doesn’t fit together, not because Ariadne’s vacationing from the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  
  
Maybe they wouldn’t fit together, anyway--maybe the only reason Ariadne thinks they might have something good is because she’s only measured it by temporary relationship standards, because she hasn’t considered the things about Yusuf that might begin to grate in the long term.  
  
He was snoring, the other night.  
  
When the woman at the other end of the subway car gets up to depart Ariadne has to remind herself that the woman at the other end of the subway car probably didn’t give two shits about Ariadne and Yusuf, that the exercise was purely for Ariadne, that the exercise was purely self indulgent.  
  
They’re at their stop. They’re going to the zoo.  
  
“We used to go to the London Zoo all the time when I was a kid,” Yusuf says. “I think my da liked to pretend that he’d actually seen tigers when he was in India.”  
  
Like the subway car, the zoo is mostly empty, the broad paths void of other visitors. Yusuf declined the map at the entry, so they wander aimlessly, pausing periodically to stop and gaze at animals.  
  
“Have you ever seen a tiger?” Ariadne asks. “Outside of a zoo, I mean.”  
  
“No,” Yusuf says. “Of course not. Who has?”  
  
“Scientists,” Ariadne shrugs, and Yusuf laughs.  
  
“Are you saying I’m not a scientist?”  
  
“I wasn’t, but if the shoe fits--”  
  
“I can’t believe you’re suggesting I’m less of a scientist than some tiger hunting field biologist,” Yusuf sighs. “You know what field biologists do for the world?”  
  
“Teach us about chimp behavior,” Ariadne replies promptly. “Jane Goodall was my hero as a kid.”  
  
“I can’t talk to you,” Yusuf says. “I’m not even sure if I can look at you right now.”  
  
“But I’m so cute,” Ariadne mutters, and Yusuf laughs.  
  
“Yes,” he says, leaning down to kiss her on the nose. “Yes, you are.”  
  
“You aren’t supposed to agree with that,” Ariadne says. “You’re supposed to say I’m sexy or some shit. Haven’t you ever seen a romantic comedy? The cute girl never gets the guy.”  
  
“I don’t suppose it matters if you already have him,” Yusuf says, and this is where Ariadne should say: ‘Yes, but for how long? My mother told me to be careful. My mother _never_ tells me to be careful.’  
  
She can’t say it. Yusuf is leaning on the rail and watching the snow leopard pace its cage, and Ariadne’s thoughts are circling her head with at least as much restlessness, and she can’t say it. Yusuf told her she was frank, and he appreciated that, but right now Ariadne feels like if she acknowledges how temporary this is it will break, shatter before her eyes, like something made of blown glass.  
  
She catches Yusuf hand and squeezes it, takes a moment to tell herself that tomorrow, tomorrow they will talk. For now they can just look at these snow leopards, which are lovely, really.  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Lemon, 17 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> Nope, nothing to worry about.
> 
> -Ari

  
Arthur wakes up in the morning with the distinct impression that someone’s watching him. It’s a weird parallel to the morning after he first arrived, but today he knows who it is, what’s happening, so he just rolls over, wiggles his ass in the air a bit more than strictly necessary, and says, “Mmm, is there coffee?”  
  
“Not for arseholes who chuck perfectly good sake into potted plants,” Eames says.  
  
Arthur rolls over again, then pulls himself up on the armrest to look at Eames.  
  
“Hello,” he says.  
  
“Someone’s happy,” Eames replies, grinning a little. “Any particular reason? Sweet dreams?”  
  
“Oh, you know,” Arthur says. “I chucked a bunch of perfectly good sake in a potted plant last night, that tends to put me in a good mood. Especially when it means I’m less hungover than you probably are.”  
  
“Not true, seeing as I’ve already had coffee, and you aren’t getting any.”  
  
“That isn’t,” Arthur says. “I see mine. It’s there, on the counter.”  
  
He points haphazardly, and Eames grins a little and hands it to him.  
  
“You’re cute in the morning, when you aren’t being a paranoid fucker.”  
  
“Cute,” Arthur repeats, sitting up now. “Get out.”  
  
“Debonair,” Eames amends. “Would you prefer that? Debonair?”  
  
“You _look_ so good,” Arthur mutters. “And then you talk.”  
  
“But you think I look good,” Eames says. “I’ll just hold onto that, shall I?”  
  
“Probably for the best,” Arthur agrees, sipping his coffee. “Did you already go out and get this?”  
  
“Just for you,” Eames says brightly. “And because Ariadne only keeps powdered shit around the house.”  
  
“Powdered shit,” Arthur nods. “Yes, that’s disgusting.”  
  
“You’re punchy today, aren’t you?” Eames says, grinning at him.  
  
Arthur _is_. He doesn’t need to explain this to anyone. But he had a date last night, a proper one, and he didn’t blow anyone anywhere and no one expected him to, and it was--nice.  
  
He can be happy, every once in a while. He’s allowed.  
  
“So I was thinking, today,” Eames starts. “That I could teach you how to surf.”  
  
“I’m supposed to trust you as a teacher?” Arthur asks.  
  
“Well, you trusted me enough to leave me alone in Ariadne’s bedroom last night, where I rifled through your suitcase this morning to determine what size wetsuit to get. So, in a word: yes.”  
  
“Right,” Arthur says, hoping he didn’t find the condoms.  
  
“I also found the condoms,” Eames says. “And the lube.”  
  
“I was a boy scout,” Arthur coughs. He _was_. “Eagle.”  
  
“Of course you were,” Eames says mildly. “You’re an Eagle Scout who came on vacation expecting to have sex, though.”  
  
“I was expecting the unexpected,” Arthur says, and Eames laughs.  
  
Arthur has no particular interest in surfing, but he doesn’t expect he’ll be _bad_ at it. It can’t require much more than balance and something resembling coordination, which Arthur has in spades, but his coordination suffers somewhat by the fact that Eames is makes him lie flat on a surf board while Eames stands beside him in the water up to his waist, one hand on the small of Arthur’s back.  
  
“What does this accomplish?” Arthur asks, trying to keep his tone somewhere south of grumbling.  
  
“You need to learn to feel the waves,” Eames says. “You’ll never get up a board if you can’t roll with the punches.”  
  
“I don’t--” Arthur says. “I find this implausible. This isn’t surfing.”  
  
Eames steps back from Arthur.  
  
“Float,” he says. “Stay on the board. Float. It’s the foundation.”  
  
There’s a moment before a wave hits, and then Arthur’s board rolls and he rolls off, tumbling into the water, scraping his knees on the sandy bottom.  
  
“That’s why you always need your tether,” Eames says when Arthur comes up. He’s holding the board, looking smug. His hair is dry but peaky, like he hadn’t bothered to comb it that morning, like he didn’t get wet even though Arthur did. Because he didn’t, because he was standing up.  
  
“I think I can say with some level of certainty that I have no interest in learning to surf,” Arthur says calmly.  
  
“Because you fell off the board once?” Eames asks. “I never took you for a quitter, Arthur.”  
  
“I’m not,” Arthur says flatly. “But I had no interest in it before, and this confirms my suspicions.”  
  
Eames meets Arthur’s gaze evenly, and there’s a certainty in his face, like surfing lessons are extremely important and not something Arthur should give up. Arthur wonders if Eames thought they would be surfing boyfriends, and then blushes a little at how quickly he’s jumping ahead in this relationship, when he’s leaving tomorrow.  
  
 _Tomorrow_. He’s leaving tomorrow, but now Eames is right here in front of him, talking about surfing when--  
  
Arthur surges forward, milling against the water, and presses his lips against Eames’. There’s a startled moment where Eames doesn’t respond, stands there looking stiff and uncomfortable and holding that damned surfboard, and then he drops the thing and grapples with his hands until they’re clutching Arthur’s shoulders, roaming Arthur’s back. Arthur angles their chests together and grasps Eames’ shoulders, tonguing his way into his mouth. Eames opens with a quiet, muffled moan, and then a wave tumbles through them and pushes them down into a swirl of sand and salt and limbs.  
  
“ _Finally_ ,” Eames says when they rise to the surface. “Finally. You don’t know how long--”  
  
Arthur doesn’t care how long, frankly. Right now he just wants to nip at Eames’ lower lip, and then lower, lower still.  
  
He would also like Eames to shut up about surfing, but that seems to have already been accomplished. The abandoned surf board drifts up to the shore, but Eames is looking at Arthur.  
  
“That wetsuit,” he murmurs. “Why the fuck are you wearing the wetsuit?”  
  
They divest one another of their wetsuits, peel them off until they’re all bare skin in the surf, the water pure and blue and wrapped about their hips.  
  
There are so many things this could be, Arthur thinks. He’s not sure if it’s a cliche that it wound up being this way or if it’s fucking perfect.  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lemon, 18 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> That isn’t entirely convincing.
> 
> Please don’t leave me to pick up all the pieces when I get back to home. I don’t think I can deal with that.
> 
> AF

  
It’s hard to tell if it’s by mutual agreement that they spend their last full day together in bed or just a coincidence, but when evening comes around and Yusuf thumbs a lazy circle around Ariadne’s nipple and tells her they should go get dinner she’s tempted to ask how he could still be hungry when he just finished eating her out.  
  
“We can go to Chinatown,” he says. “We haven’t done a proper visit to Chinatown yet.”  
  
“Sure,” Ariadne says. “Okay, Chinatown it is, we’ll get dressed. Should we bring these sheets to a laundromat?”  
  
“No,” Yusuf says. “I can take them after Arthur gets back.”  
  
Then you can smell us, after I’m gone, Ariadne thinks, but there are so many almost saids, here, more than she’s ever carried in her life, and that is maybe the most maudlin of them all.  
  
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” she says flatly, pulling on her jeans. Yusuf looks across the empty bed at her, running a hand through his hair.  
  
“Yes,” he says. “I know.”  
  
“Should we talk about this?” she asks. “I’m going back to Hawaii.”  
  
“It’s a fling, right?” Yusuf asks, spreading his hands and shrugging his shoulders. “What’s there to talk about?”  
  
“Right,” Ariadne says. “I just thought--”  
  
She looks at Yusuf again, Yusuf whose eyes are dark and rich and who is watching her, still, something opaque there behind his irises. He has, after all, suffered her nosiness, her mourning, her morning breath. For less than a week, though, with the assumption that she’d eventually leave. It’s the sort of thing--you can look past flaws readily enough if you assume the relationship is coming to end, running on borrowed time.  
  
“It’s a fling,” Ariadne says. “Right.”  
  
She shrugs on a shirt and runs a hand through her hair.  
  
“Shall we go, then?” she says, and they do. Out into the street, one last time. It rained in the morning, and the sidewalks are slick and gleaming with it, reflecting street lamps back into themselves. It’s beautiful, Ariadne thinks. Not like Hawaii, but beautiful.  
  
She catches Yusuf’s hand, which is one of those things she will probably never do with a fling again because it makes it feel like it might be something else. But now that she’s already done it, she may as well take advantage, because it’s comforting to feel Yusuf’s hand in hers, warm and large.  
  
“Have I told you about my brother?” she asks. “Niko. You know he dated Eames?”  
  
“Eames is the one with Arthur, right?”  
  
Ariadne nods.  
  
“They broke up, a year or so back,” she continues. “It wasn’t a big deal for him, for Eames. They’re still friends--Eames goes fishing with Niko from time to time, you know, stuff like that. Niko said it didn’t hurt as much, because it never felt like it would really work.”  
  
“What are you saying, Ariadne?” Yusuf asks. They’re getting close to Canal Street, the fish markets. Ariadne wants to stop and offer advice, but she’s not sure how it would be taken.  
  
“I would’ve torn Eames’ throat out for my brother,” Ariadne shrugs. “But Niko said I didn’t need to.”  
  
“I’m an only child,” Yusuf says stiffly.  
  
“No, sorry,” Ariadne says. “Sorry, I’m being convoluted about this. What I meant was: sometimes I feel like this could really work.”  
  
“What?” Yusuf asks. He’s stopped on the sidewalk, stilling holding Ariadne’s hand, and he turns to look her full in the face.  
  
“This,” Ariadne says. “Us. Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes it feels like we actually live here, in Arthur’s guest bedroom, and we’re only playing at being on vacation and having a fling. We’ve really been living together for ages. But, you know, my dad died last month, and maybe I’m just being weird and needy, and I’ve been a little strange this whole time, so I kind of understand if--the sex was good, so I mean, obviously it wasn’t a total wash for you--”  
  
She’s rambling. She knows, objectively, that this is happening, and Yusuf is staring at her and she can’t read his face at all, and the longer he does this the harder it is to tell what she should be saying, or doing.  
  
He kisses her.  
  
There are people bustling around them, and it smells strongly of fish, and they’re standing on the sidewalk in streetlamps and shadow, and Yusuf is kissing her, gently and firmly, like he’s trying to tell her something, like he’s say ‘yes,’ and it’s not just Ariadne, here, it’s both of them.  
  
“Do you want to come to Hawaii for Thanksgiving? We don’t do turkey, but it’s still damn good,” she says when they pull apart, and Yusuf laughs.  
  
“I could,” he says. “I’d be there a bit early to start my postdoc, though.”  
  
Ariadne’s pulls away, gripping Yusuf by the sides.  
  
“ _What_?” she asks.  
  
“I--ah--didn’t want to tell you, in case you felt guilty,” he says. “I’m doing my post-doc at UH Manoa.”  
  
“Oh god,” Ariadne says. “We’re stupid. I hate you.”  
  
She hates him, or maybe herself, for not just saying, but the feeling that ripples through her isn’t so much hate as it is relief, and maybe joy. The feeling that ripples through her is, at the very least, good, and sweet, and hopeful.  
  
“Not quite the response I was hoping for,” Yusuf says, and Ariadne leans up to kiss him again, and it’s a new thing, now.  
  


> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lemon, 18 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)
> 
> Don’t worry about Yusuf and I.
> 
> I’m more concerned about you and Eames.
> 
> -Ari

  
It’s Eames’ idea for them to climb Lanikai for sunrise the last day, it’s Eames who wakes Arthur from behind him in bed, who stops at Bean Surfin’ and unlocks it early to get them coffee and muffins, who brings the headlamps and chatters on the drive there so Arthur doesn’t have to think about the fact that they’re doing this now because any later and Esther will be there to pick him up, drive him to the airport. Eames has work, anyway, at Bean Surfin’, and it’s just--  
  
They dated for two days, give or take. It’s the shortest and best relationship Arthur has ever been in, and that thought thrums through his head on repeat as his feet plod up the hill. Eames seems preternaturally cheerful, but Arthur doesn’t trust it--it’s the same way he immediately adjusted his behavior when Arthur told him they couldn’t sleep together, like flipping a switch, and Eames is doing it to protect something--Arthur, himself, both of them.  
  
The hike doesn’t take Arthur’s mind off things, but the morning does: quiet and cool, dew slipping from the plants that line the path. There are a few joggers but mostly they have the place to themselves, and as the light begins to tip towards twilight, coloring everything blue for a few perfect moments, Arthur is grateful for that--if there were other people about he’s not sure how this would feel, but right now it feels pleasant, a little like good bye but a little like a hike towards the sunrise. Below them lights are coming on and clouds and drifting in; below them, Oahu is waking up.  
  
When they reach the peak Eames settles down and opens his backpack, removing a bag of muffins and a bottle of champagne.  
  
“The muffins are from yesterday,” he says. “So I thought the champagne elevated it a bit.”  
  
Arthur settles down on the turf next to him.  
  
“It’s six in the morning,” he says dryly.  
  
“And I was going to bring orange juice, but then the bag got heavy.”  
  
“So what are we celebrating?” Arthur asks as Eames pours champagne into two plastic cups.  
  
“A vacation well spent,” Eames says. “A beautiful morning.”  
  
Arthur nods, like that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation and those are excellent things to celebrate, but something inside him is sinking slightly.  
  
They’re celebrating the end.  
  
He takes the cup and toasts Eames lightly, plastering a grin on his face and pressing their shoulders together. This is it, then. This is the sunrise on their last day, and it isn’t even a full day, it’s only the few moments of sunrise, as brief and transitory as the event itself.  
  
The sunrise is beautiful, at least, transitioning through the daylight like a living painting. They share their champagne with a passing jogger, and then they descend the mountain on the same path they came in on, going down and down and down.  
  
Eames drops Arthur off at Ariadne’s and they get out of the car and wind around one another, one last kiss, one last touch, one last tumble on the couch.  
  
It happened so quickly, Arthur thinks when Eames leaves and he’s packing his suitcase. It could happen again, with someone else, if Arthur let it. He tells himself that with conviction, although he wishes they had talked about leaving more. Maybe they should have, but Esther is here, honking in the driveway, one of her children strapped into the child seat in the back.  
  
“Good vacation, eh?” Esther starts as soon as Arthur gets in the car, and she keeps up her stream of chatter while Arthur peers out the window into the morning. It’s just like when Arthur arrived and also completely unlike arriving, but Esther seems Janus-faced, bookending the vacation and recalling how short it was, really.  
  
The sky’s fully blue now, no trace of sunrise left, and it’s over. They’re driving past a string of shorefront houses, a stretch of beach. Off in the distance Arthur can see things on the water, boats, probably, and then Arthur’s reverie is suddenly interrupted by a a surfboard that says Bean Surfin’.  
  
Eames is there now, making lattes for tourists or whatever it is he does. They’re rolling past, and then it’s slipping away. _Eames_ is slipping away, and his face will only exist in Arthur’s mind’s eye now, and they really should have talked about this--  
  
“Stop,” Arthur says, interrupting Esther’s commentary. “Can we go back to Bean Surfin’?”  
  
“Need coffee, do you?” Esther asks as she wheels them back. “Can’t blame you. Tell Eames to make me my usual!”  
  
Arthur is already out of the car.  
  
There’s a line when he gets inside, and Eames is at the front chatting with a woman and doesn’t look up when the bells on the door jangle or when the door slams shut, so Arthur is left standing there, waiting in line.  
  
He’s there for a while, letting the sounds of the coffee shop wash over him and fill him up so there’s no space for worry, and then, suddenly, he’s standing in front of the register and looking at Eames, who is wearing an apron with a surfboard embroidered on it over the plain grey t-shirt he was wearing the first day Arthur met him, who looks exactly like Eames, who is standing there with his hands on the counter when Arthur wants his hands to be somewhere else.  
  
Who is looking back at him.  
  
“Ah--” Arthur starts. “Esther wants her usual.”  
  
“And you?” Eames asks slowly. He’s looking at Arthur’s face intently, like he’s trying to discern what Arthur will say before Arthur says it.  
  
“You,” Arthur says, and then he quickly amends. “I mean, I was thinking--we have coffee shops in New York. And surfing. I don’t think it’s very good, but it’s there.”  
  
It’s not the declaration Arthur would have written, but judging by the look on Eames’ face, it will do.  
  
Yes, Arthur thinks as Eames reaches across the counter to pull their heads together. It will do just fine.  
  


> Subject: Happy Thanksgiving!, 25 November 2010  
>  To: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)  
>  From: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  Attachments: dinner.jpg, group.jpg
> 
> Tell Eames we missed him, you friend thief, and show him this picture of dinner so he can be jealous when you probably made do with turkey and dry oyster stuffing or whatever (what a waste of oysters. I bet the aphrodisiac is countered by the tryptophan. Or maybe it goes away if you cook them, anyway?). We had the bounty of the sea! Etc., etc., etc.
> 
> Yusuf and I were thinking about coming to New York for New Year’s? Since you missed him last week (sorry about that). Let us know if your guest bedroom’s open.
> 
> -Ari
> 
>  
> 
> Subject: Re: Happy Thanksgiving!, 25 November 2010  
>  To: Ariadne Jones-Kahue (ariadne.jones@gmail.com)  
>  From: Arthur Faraday (arthur.faraday@miles-cobbconsulting.com)
> 
> Friend thief? And that makes you a what?
> 
> The guest bedroom should be open for New Year’s, but Eero keeps sleeping there. I think he misses you two? Or he just hates Eames. I will try to convince him to vacate the premises, though, and you and Yusuf are always welcome to visit (provided you tell me in advance and still follow the normal rules of occupancy and common decency).
> 
> I will have you know that our Thanksgiving turkey was not _dry_. (But that’s only because Mal gets some chef she knows to cook it, because cooking her own turkey is too plebian.) And whatever aphrodisiacs are in oysters seemed to function just fine.
> 
> -AF


End file.
